Az asszír birodalmi expanzió = Assyrian Imperial Expansion

A hároméves (2008–2011) (72927 jelzetű) OTKA Asszír birodalmi expanzió című kutatómunka eredményeként számos közlemény és konferencia előadás mellett két monografikus feldolgozás született. Az egyik az asszír birodalmi expanzió alapját képező asszír katonai expanzió önálló, monografikus feldolgozása. Ez a projekt egy három kötetesre tervezett asszír hadtörténeti monográfia. Ennek a vállalkozásnak az első kötete, egy angol nyelvű, már nyelvileg is lektorált nagymonográfia: The Assyrian Army: I. The Structure of the Neo-Assyrian Army as Reconstructed from the Assyrian Palace Reliefs and Cuneiform Sources (1.200.000 leütés, 300 oldal, 70 képtábla, 17 önálló táblázat, stb.) már kiadónál van és megjelenése 2011 második felében várható. Egy újabb monográfia: Asszír birodalmi expanzió, amelyben a kutatók tematikus bontásban (katonai expanzió, gazdasági expanzió, politikai expanzió, ideológiai expanzió) tárgyalják az Újasszír Birodalom terjeszkedésének történetét. | The Expansion of the Assyrian Empire was a three-year research project (2008-2011) that gave birth to several publications, conference speeches and two monographs. One of these has been an independent, monographic elaboration on the Assyrian military expansion that served as the basis of the expansion of the Assyrian Empire. This project constitutes a three-volume Assyrian military history. The first volume of the present enterprise is a major monograph in English, which has already been proofread from a grammatical and stylistic point of view: The Assyrian Army: I. The Structure of the Neo-Assyrian Army as Reconstructed from the Assyrian Palace Reliefs and Cuneiform Sources (1,200,000 characters, 300 pages, 70 plates, 17 independent charts, etc.) has already been handed over to the publishing house and is expected to come out in print in the second half of 2011. The focal point of yet another monograph, The Expansion of the Assyrian Empire is the thematic portrayal of the history of the expansion of the Neo-Assyrian Empire with respect to military, economic, political and ideological expansion

Diffúziós folyamatok nanoskálán = Diffusion Processes on the Nanoscale

Megmutattuk, hogy Si-nak amorf Ge-ba történő beoldódásakor a kezdetben éles határfelület éles marad és eltolódása nem követi a parabolikus törvényt. Az eltolódást az x~tk hatványfüggvénnyel illesztve azt kaptuk, hogy a k kinetikai exponens értéke kezdetben 0.7 és hosszabb idő után átmegy a parabolikusnak megfelelő 0.5 értékbe. Ez összhangban van korábbi szimulációs eredményünkkel és első kísérleti indikáció az átmenet megfigyelésére. Hasonló elrendezésben vizsgáltuk Si beoldódását egykristály Ge-ba és azt kaptuk, hogy a kinetikai exponensek értéke nagyobb mint amorf esetben (0.9) jelezve, hogy itt erőseb a diffúziós aszimmetria. Vizsgáltuk továbbá hidrogénezett amorf Si-Ge multirétegekben a diffúziós hőkezelések során fellépő szerkezeti változásokat, és azt is megállapítottuk, hogy a diffúziós keveredés lassúbb a hidrogén tartalmú mintákban. Szigetes Cu illetve Ni részecskéket hoztunk létre kerámia hordozókon és vizsgáltuk gömbi, vagy félgömbi geometriában az oxidáció hatását (létre jönnek-e Kirkendall-eredetű üregek, vagy sem). A kísérleteket most terjesztjük ki hasonló geometriában szilárdtest reakciók vizsgálatára. Szimulációkat végeztünk arra vonatkozóan, hogy a klasszikus nukleációs és növekedési folyamatban, a kritikus nukleációs sugár hogyan függ a diffúziós aszimmetria paramétertől és azt kaptuk, hogy értéke akár egy nagyságrenddel is lecsökken (a szimmetrikus diffúziós esethez viszonyitva), ha diffúzió jóval gyorsabb a mátrixban mint a kiválásban. | We have shown that for the dissolution of Si into amorphous Ge. The initially sharp interface remains sharp and shifts by a non parabolic kinetics. Fitting the shift by a x~tk power function it was obtained that at the beginning the values of k kinetic exponents were 0.7, and after longer annealing times it goes gradually to the 0.5 value which corresponds to parabolic kinetics. This is in accordance with our previous result obtained from computer simulations. In a similar arrangement the dissolution of Si into crystalline Si was also carried out and it was obtained that the k was larger in this system (0.9) indicating that here the diffusion asymmetry is larger. Structural changes in hydrogenated Si/Ge multilayers were also carried out it was possible to conclude that the diffusion intermixing is slower in samples hydrogenated samples. Beaded Cu and Ni films were produced on ceramic substrates and the effect of oxidation on the spherical or semi-spherical particles was investigated (whether Kirkendall voids are formed or not). The experiments are extended for investigation of solid-state reaction on similar geometry. We have carried out simulations for the critical nucleus size in a classical nucleation and growth process and it was obtained if the diffusion is much faster in the matrix than in the precipitate, the critical size can be even one order of magnitude smaller as compared to the case when the diffusion asymmetry is neglected

Weak lensing cosmology with convolutional neural networks on noisy data

Weak gravitational lensing is one of the most promising cosmological probes of the late universe. Several large ongoing (DES, KiDS, HSC) and planned (LSST, EUCLID, WFIRST) astronomical surveys attempt to collect even deeper and larger scale data on weak lensing. Due to gravitational collapse, the distribution of dark matter is non-Gaussian on small scales. However, observations are typically evaluated through the two-point correlation function of galaxy shear, which does not capture non-Gaussian features of the lensing maps. Previous studies attempted to extract non-Gaussian information from weak lensing observations through several higher-order statistics such as the three-point correlation function, peak counts or Minkowski-functionals. Deep convolutional neural networks (CNN) emerged in the field of computer vision with tremendous success, and they offer a new and very promising framework to extract information from 2 or 3-dimensional astronomical data sets, confirmed by recent studies on weak lensing. We show that a CNN is able to yield significantly stricter constraints of ($\sigma_8, \Omega_m$) cosmological parameters than the power spectrum using convergence maps generated by full N-body simulations and ray-tracing, at angular scales and shape noise levels relevant for future observations. In a scenario mimicking LSST or Euclid, the CNN yields 2.4-2.8 times smaller credible contours than the power spectrum, and 3.5-4.2 times smaller at noise levels corresponding to a deep space survey such as WFIRST. We also show that at shape noise levels achievable in future space surveys the CNN yields 1.4-2.1 times smaller contours than peak counts, a higher-order statistic capable of extracting non-Gaussian information from weak lensing maps

Müon: mi az és mire jó?

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Chlamydia pneumoniae in atherosclerotic middle cerebral artery

Background and Purpose—Atherosclerotic middle cerebral arteries are frequent sites of thrombosis, leading to stroke. Previous studies have suggested a role for Chlamydia pneumoniae in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. However, the presence of this pathogen in atherosclerotic middle cerebral arteries has heretofore not been documented. In the present study, we analyzed atheromatous plaques from middle cerebral arteries for the presence of C pneumoniae. Methods—Atherosclerotic middle cerebral arteries from 15 cadavers who died of natural causes and corresponding nonatherosclerotic arteries from 4 otherwise healthy trauma victims were examined. Assays for C pneumoniae DNA were carried out by nested polymerase chain reaction (nPCR) specific for the C pneumoniae ompA gene. The presence of the bacterium was assessed by transmission electron microscopy. Results—Five of the 15 atherosclerotic arterial samples and none of the control tissues were positive for C pneumoniae by nPCR. Particles similar in morphology and size to C pneumoniae elementary bodies were detected by transmission electron microscopy in 4 of the 5 nPCR-positive atherosclerotic samples. Conclusions—The demonstration of C pneumoniae in atherosclerotic middle cerebral arteries is consistent with the hypothesis that this bacterium is involved in acute and chronic cerebrovascular diseases

Independent and joint effects of antibodies to human heat-shock protein 60 and Chlamydia pneumoniae infection in the development of coronary atherosclerosis

Background—Studies have suggested that the prevalence of antibodies against heat-shock proteins (HSPs), Chlamydia pneumoniae (Cpn), and cytomegalovirus (CMV) is associated with coronary artery disease (CAD), but the independent or joint effects of human (h) HSP60 antibodies and these pathogens in patients have not been fully elucidated. Methods and Results—A total of 405 subjects (276 patients with CAD and 129 control individuals) were tested for serum antibodies to hHSP60, Cpn, and CMV immediate-early-1 (IE1) antigens. Patients were also assessed for serum cholesterol, triglyceride levels, and smoking habit. Significantly elevated levels of antibodies to hHSP60 and Cpn but not to CMV-IE1 antigens were documented in CAD patients. Multiple logistic regression analysis and subanalyses of selected subjects showed that these associations were independent of age, sex, smoking, and serum lipid levels. Antibodies to hHSP60 and Cpn did not correlate quantitatively; however, the relative risk of disease development was substantially increased in subjects with high antibody levels to both hHSP60 and Cpn, reaching an odds ratio of 82.0 (95% CI 10.6 to 625.0). Conclusions—High levels of antibodies to hHSP60 and Cpn are independent risk factors for coronary atherosclerosis, but their simultaneous presence substantially increases the risk for disease development