310 research outputs found
Cholinergic modulation of response properties and orientation tuning of neurons in primary visual cortex of anaesthetized Marmoset monkeys
Cortical processing is strongly influenced by the actions of neuromodulators such as acetylcholine (ACh). Early studies in anaesthetized cats argued that acetylcholine can cause a sharpening of orientation tuning functions and an improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of neuronal responses in primary visual cortex (V1). Recent in vitro studies have demonstrated that acetylcholine reduces the efficacy of feedback and intracortical connections via the activation of muscarinic receptors, and increases the efficacy of feed-forward connections via the activation of nicotinic receptors. If orientation tuning is mediated or
enhanced by intracortical connections, high levels of acetylcholine should diminish orientation tuning. Here we investigate the effects of acetylcholine on orientation tuning and neuronal responsiveness in anaesthetized marmoset monkeys. We found that acetylcholine caused a broadening of the orientation tuning in the majority of cells, while tuning functions became sharper in only
a minority of cells. Moreover, acetylcholine generally facilitated neuronal responses, but neither improved signal-to-noise ratio, nor reduced trial-to-trial firing rate variance systematically. Acetylcholine did however, reduce variability of spike occurrences within spike trains. We discuss these findings in the context of dynamic control of feed-forward and lateral â feedback connectivity
by acetylcholine
Western Indian Ocean marine and terrestrial records of climate variability: a review and new concepts on land-ocean interactions since AD 1660
We examine the relationship between three tropical and two subtropical western Indian Ocean coral oxygen isotope time series to surface air temperatures (SAT) and rainfall over India, tropical East Africa and southeast Africa. We review established relationships, provide new concepts with regard to distinct rainfall seasons, and mean annual temperatures. Tropical corals are coherent with SAT over western India and East Africa at interannual and multidecadal periodicities. The subtropical corals correlate with Southeast African SAT at periodicities of 16â30 years. The relationship between the coral records and land rainfall is more complex. Running correlations suggest varying strength of interannual teleconnections between the tropical coral oxygen isotope records and rainfall over equatorial East Africa. The relationship with rainfall over India changed in the 1970s. The subtropical oxygen isotope records are coherent with South African rainfall at interdecadal periodicities. Paleoclimatological reconstructions of land rainfall and SAT reveal that the inferred relationships generally hold during the last 350 years. Thus, the Indian Ocean corals prove invaluable for investigating landâocean interactions during past centuries
Decay of isolated surface features driven by the Gibbs-Thomson effect in analytic model and simulation
A theory based on the thermodynamic Gibbs-Thomson relation is presented which
provides the framework for understanding the time evolution of isolated
nanoscale features (i.e., islands and pits) on surfaces. Two limiting cases are
predicted, in which either diffusion or interface transfer is the limiting
process. These cases correspond to similar regimes considered in previous works
addressing the Ostwald ripening of ensembles of features. A third possible
limiting case is noted for the special geometry of "stacked" islands. In these
limiting cases, isolated features are predicted to decay in size with a power
law scaling in time: A is proportional to (t0-t)^n, where A is the area of the
feature, t0 is the time at which the feature disappears, and n=2/3 or 1. The
constant of proportionality is related to parameters describing both the
kinetic and equilibrium properties of the surface. A continuous time Monte
Carlo simulation is used to test the application of this theory to generic
surfaces with atomic scale features. A new method is described to obtain
macroscopic kinetic parameters describing interfaces in such simulations.
Simulation and analytic theory are compared directly, using measurements of the
simulation to determine the constants of the analytic theory. Agreement between
the two is very good over a range of surface parameters, suggesting that the
analytic theory properly captures the necessary physics. It is anticipated that
the simulation will be useful in modeling complex surface geometries often seen
in experiments on physical surfaces, for which application of the analytic
model is not straightforward.Comment: RevTeX (with .bbl file), 25 pages, 7 figures from 9 Postscript files
embedded using epsf. Submitted to Phys. Rev. B A few minor changes made on
9/24/9
High-Order Coupled Cluster Method (CCM) Calculations for Quantum Magnets with Valence-Bond Ground States
In this article, we prove that exact representations of dimer and plaquette
valence-bond ket ground states for quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnets may be
formed via the usual coupled cluster method (CCM) from independent-spin product
(e.g. N\'eel) model states. We show that we are able to provide good results
for both the ground-state energy and the sublattice magnetization for dimer and
plaquette valence-bond phases within the CCM. As a first example, we
investigate the spin-half -- model for the linear chain, and we show
that we are able to reproduce exactly the dimerized ground (ket) state at
. The dimerized phase is stable over a range of values for
around 0.5. We present evidence of symmetry breaking by considering
the ket- and bra-state correlation coefficients as a function of . We
then consider the Shastry-Sutherland model and demonstrate that the CCM can
span the correct ground states in both the N\'eel and the dimerized phases.
Finally, we consider a spin-half system with nearest-neighbor bonds for an
underlying lattice corresponding to the magnetic material CaVO (CAVO).
We show that we are able to provide excellent results for the ground-state
energy in each of the plaquette-ordered, N\'eel-ordered, and dimerized regimes
of this model. The exact plaquette and dimer ground states are reproduced by
the CCM ket state in their relevant limits.Comment: 34 pages, 13 figures, 2 table
Breakdown of Scale Invariance in the Phase Ordering of Fractal Clusters
Our numerical simulations with the Cahn-Hilliard equation show that
coarsening of fractal clusters (FCs) is not a scale-invariant process. On the
other hand, a typical coarsening length scale and interfacial area of the FC
exhibit power laws in time, while the mass fractal dimension remains invariant.
The initial value of the lower cutoff is a relevant length scale. A
sharp-interface model is formulated that can follow the whole dynamics of a
diffusion controlled growth, coarsening, fragmentation and approach to
equilibrium in a system with conserved order parameter.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, RevTex, submitted to PR
Normal scaling in globally conserved interface-controlled coarsening of fractal clusters
Globally conserved interface-controlled coarsening of fractal clusters
exhibits dynamic scale invariance and normal scaling. This is demonstrated by a
numerical solution of the Ginzburg-Landau equation with a global conservation
law. The sharp-interface limit of this equation is volume preserving motion by
mean curvature. The scaled form of the correlation function has a power-law
tail accommodating the fractal initial condition. The coarsening length
exhibits normal scaling with time. Finally, shrinking of the fractal clusters
with time is observed. The difference between global and local conservation is
discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figure
Weak selection and stability of localized distributions in Ostwald ripening
We support and generalize a weak selection rule predicted recently for the
self-similar asymptotics of the distribution function (DF) in the
zero-volume-fraction limit of Ostwald ripening (OR). An asymptotic perturbation
theory is developed that, when combined with an exact invariance property of
the system, yields the selection rule, predicts a power-law convergence towards
the selected self-similar DF and agrees well with our numerical simulations for
the interface- and diffusion-controlled OR.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PR
Equilibrium shapes and energies of coherent strained InP islands
The equilibrium shapes and energies of coherent strained InP islands grown on
GaP have been investigated with a hybrid approach that has been previously
applied to InAs islands on GaAs. This combines calculations of the surface
energies by density functional theory and the bulk deformation energies by
continuum elasticity theory. The calculated equilibrium shapes for different
chemical environments exhibit the {101}, {111}, {\=1\=1\=1} facets and a (001)
top surface. They compare quite well with recent atomic-force microscopy data.
Thus in the InP/GaInP-system a considerable equilibration of the individual
islands with respect to their shapes can be achieved. We discuss the
implications of our results for the Ostwald ripening of the coherent InP
islands. In addition we compare strain fields in uncapped and capped islands.Comment: 10 pages including 6 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. B. Related
publications can be found at http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm
A sea surface temperature reconstruction for the southern Indian Ocean trade wind belt from corals in Rodrigues Island (19°âŻS, 63°âŻE)
The western Indian Ocean has been warming rapidly over recent decades, causing
a greater number of extreme climatic events. It is therefore of paramount
importance to improve our understanding of links between Indian Ocean sea
surface temperature (SST) variability, climate change and sustainability of
tropical coral reef ecosystems. Here we present monthly resolved coral
SrâŻââŻCa records from two different locations from Rodrigues Island
(63°âŻE, 19°âŻS) in the south-central Indian Ocean trade wind
belt. We reconstruct SST based on a linear relationship with the SrâŻââŻCa
proxy with records starting from 1781 and 1945, respectively. We assess
relationships between the observed long-term SST and climate fluctuations
related to the El NiñoâSouthern Oscillation (ENSO), the Subtropical
Indian Ocean Dipole Mode (SIOD) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)
between 1945 and 2006, respectively. The reproducibility of the SrâŻââŻCa
records is assessed as are the potential impacts of diagenesis and corallite
orientation on SrâŻââŻCaâSST reconstructions. We calibrate individual
robust SrâŻââŻCa records with in situ SST and various gridded SST products.
The results show that the SST record from Cabri provides the first Indian
Ocean coral proxy time series that records the SST signature of the PDO in
the south-central Indian Ocean since 1945. We suggest that additional records
from Rodrigues Island can provide excellent records of SST variations in the
southern Indian Ocean trade wind belt to unravel teleconnections with the
SIOD/ENSO/PDO on longer timescales
Results from the translation and adaptation of the Iranian Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (I-SF-MPQ): preliminary evidence of its reliability, construct validity and sensitivity in an Iranian pain population
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ) is one of the most widely used instruments to assess pain. The aim of this study was to translate and culturally adapt the questionnaire for Farsi (the official language of Iran) speakers in order to test its reliability and sensitivity.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We followed Guillemin's guidelines for cross-cultural adaption of health-related measures, which include forward-backward translations, expert committee meetings, and face validity testing in a pilot group. Subsequently, the questionnaire was administered to a sample of 100 diverse chronic pain patients attending a tertiary pain and rehabilitation clinic. In order to evaluate test-retest reliability, patients completed the questionnaire in the morning and early evening of their first visit. Finally, patients were asked to complete the questionnaire for the third time after completing a standardized treatment protocol three weeks later. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to evaluate reliability. We used principle component analysis to assess construct validity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ninety-two subjects completed the questionnaire both in the morning and in the evening of the first visit (test-retest reliability), and after three weeks (sensitivity to change). Eight patients who did not finish treatment protocol were excluded from the study. Internal consistency was found by Cronbach's alpha to be 0.951, 0.832 and 0.840 for sensory, affective and total scores respectively. ICC resulted in 0.906 for sensory, 0.712 for affective and 0.912 for total pain score. Item to subscale score correlations supported the convergent validity of each item to its hypothesized subscale. Correlations were observed to range from r<sup>2 </sup>= 0.202 to r<sup>2 </sup>= 0.739. Sensitivity or responsiveness was evaluated by pair t-test, which exhibited a significant difference between pre- and post-treatment scores (p < 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results of this study indicate that the Iranian version of the SF-MPQ is a reliable questionnaire and responsive to changes in the subscale and total pain scores in Persian chronic pain patients over time.</p
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