Changes in neuropsychological functioning following temporal lobectomy in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy

Purpose: This study was conducted to evaluate the changes in neuropsychological functioning in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) after temporal lobe resection. Methods: Fifty-four TLE patients were evaluated before and after surgery using comprehensive neuropsychological tests to assess general intelligence, executive functioning, language, verbal and visual memory, working memory, visuo-spatial ability, attention and motor function. Results: The patients with left TLE showed no impairment of neuropsychological functioning after surgery, with the exception of auditory immediate memory. Furthermore, they showed significant improvement in performance IQ, executive function, working memory, visual memory, attention and psychomotor speed. The patients with right TLE did not show any significant impairment in post-operative neuropsychological functioning. They showed improvements in intellectual and executive functions, language, visual memory, visuo-spatial ability, attention and motor function post-operatively. The patients with hippocampal sclerosis showed greater post-operative improvements than the patients without hippocampal sclerosis regardless of the side. Patients with better pre-operative neuropsychological function had a higher chance of successfully discontinuing all seizure medications after surgery. Discussion: The results of this study suggest that temporal lobectomy does not harm the neuropsychological functioning of patients with intractable TLE and that it improves cognitive functions of the contralateral hemisphere. © 2009 W. S. Maney & Son Ltd

Two-Boson Exchange Physics: A Brief Review

Current status of the two-boson exchange contributions to elastic electron-proton scattering, both for parity conserving and parity-violating, is briefly reviewed. How the discrepancy in the extraction of elastic nucleon form factors between unpolarized Rosenbluth and polarization transfer experiments can be understood, in large part, by the two-photon exchange corrections is discussed. We also illustrate how the measurement of the ratio between positron-proton and electron-proton scattering can be used to differentiate different models of two-photon exchange. For the parity-violating electron-proton scattering, the interest is on how the two-boson exchange (TBE), \gamma Z-exchange in particular, could affect the extraction of the long-sought strangeness form factors. Various calculations all indicate that the magnitudes of effect of TBE on the extraction of strangeness form factors is small, though can be large percentage-wise in certain kinematics.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, prepared for Proceedings of the fifth Asia-Pacific Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics (APFB2011), Seoul, Korea, August 22-26, 2011, to appear in Few-Body Systems, November 201

Representation of nonequilibrium steady states in large mechanical systems

Recently a novel concise representation of the probability distribution of heat conducting nonequilibrium steady states was derived. The representation is valid to the second order in the ``degree of nonequilibrium'', and has a very suggestive form where the effective Hamiltonian is determined by the excess entropy production. Here we extend the representation to a wide class of nonequilibrium steady states realized in classical mechanical systems where baths (reservoirs) are also defined in terms of deterministic mechanics. The present extension covers such nonequilibrium steady states with a heat conduction, with particle flow (maintained either by external field or by particle reservoirs), and under an oscillating external field. We also simplify the derivation and discuss the corresponding representation to the full order.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figure

N=4 SYM on R x S^3 and Theories with 16 Supercharges

We study N=4 SYM on R x S^3 and theories with 16 supercharges arising as its consistent truncations. These theories include the plane wave matrix model, N=4 SYM on R x S^2 and N=4 SYM on R x S^3/Z_k, and their gravity duals were studied by Lin and Maldacena. We make a harmonic expansion of the original N=4 SYM on R x S^3 and obtain each of the truncated theories by keeping a part of the Kaluza-Klein modes. This enables us to analyze all the theories in a unified way. We explicitly construct some nontrivial vacua of N=4 SYM on R x S^2. We perform 1-loop analysis of the original and truncated theories. In particular, we examine states regarded as the integrable SO(6) spin chain and a time-dependent BPS solution, which is considered to correspond to the AdS giant graviton in the original theory.Comment: 68 pages, 12 figures, v2,v3:typos corrected and comments added. To appear in JHE

Partial Weighted MaxSAT for Optimal Planning

Abstract. We consider the problem of computing optimal plans for proposi-tional planning problems with action costs. In the spirit of leveraging advances in general-purpose automated reasoning for that setting, we develop an approach that operates by solving a sequence of partial weighted MaxSAT problems, each of which corresponds to a step-bounded variant of the problem at hand. Our ap-proach is the first SAT-based system in which a proof of cost-optimality is ob-tained using a MaxSAT procedure. It is also the first system of this kind to incor-porate an admissible planning heuristic. We perform a detailed empirical eval-uation of our work using benchmarks from a number of International Planning Competitions.

Measurement of K^+ \to \pi^0 \mu^+ \nu \gamma decay using stopped kaons

The K^+ \to \pi^0 \mu^+ \nu \gamma ($K_{\mu 3 \gamma}$) decay has been measured with stopped positive kaons at the KEK 12 GeV proton synchrotron. A $K_{\mu 3 \gamma}$ sample containing 125 events was obtained. The partial branching ratio $Br(K_{\mu 3 \gamma}, E_{\gamma}>30 {\rm MeV}, \theta_{\mu^+ \gamma}>20^{\circ})$ was found to be $[2.4 \pm 0.5(stat) \pm 0.6(syst)]\times 10^{-5}$, which is in good agreement with theoretical predictions.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Physics Letters

Linear Contraction Behavior of Low-Carbon, Low-Alloy Steels During and After Solidification Using Real-Time Measurements

A technique for measuring the linear contraction during and after solidification of low-alloy steel was developed and used for examination of two commercial low-carbon and low-alloy steel grades. The effects of several experimental parameters on the contraction were studied. The solidification contraction behavior was described using the concept of rigidity in a solidifying alloy, evolution of the solid fraction, and the microstructure development during solidification. A correlation between the linear contraction properties in the solidification range and the hot crack susceptibility was proposed and used for the estimation of hot cracking susceptibility for two studied alloys and verified with the real casting practice. The technique allows estimation of the contraction coefficient of commercial steels in a wide range of temperatures and could be helpful for computer simulation and process optimization during continuous casting. © 2013 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society and ASM International

Reproducibility of Shin's method for necrotic core and calcium content in atherosclerotic coronary lesions treated with bioresorbable everolimus-eluting vascular scaffolds using volumetric intravascular ultrasound radiofrequency-based analysis

Although Virtual Histology intravascular ultrasound (VH-IVUS) is increasingly used in clinical research, the reproducibility of plaque composition remains unexplored in significant coronary artery and stented lesions. The purpose of this study was to assess the reproducibility of necrotic core and calcium content in atherosclerotic coronary lesions that were treated with a bioresorbable everolimus-eluting vascular scaffold (BVS) using a new measurement method (Shin's method) by VH-IVUS. Eight patients treated with a BVS (Abbott Vascular, Santa Clara, CA, USA) were analyzed with serial VH-IVUS assessments, i.e., pre- and post-stenting, and at 6 months and 2 years follow-up. A total of 32 coronary segments were imaged to evaluate the reproducibility of volumetric VH-IVUS measurements. In Shin's method, contours are drawn around the IVUS catheter (instead of the lumen) and vessel. Overall, in the imaged coronary segment, for necrotic core and dense calcium volumes, the relative intra-observer differences were 0.30 ± 0.22, 0.19 ± 0.16% for observer 1 and 0.45 ± 0.41, 0.36 ± 0.47% for observer 2, respectively. The interobserver relative differences of necrotic core and dense calcium volumes were 0.51 ± 0.79 and 0.56 ± 1.01%, respectively. The present study demonstrates a good reproducibility for both, intra-observer and interobserver measurements using Shin's method. This method is suitable for the measurement of necrotic core and dense calcium using VH-IVUS in longitudinal studies, especially studies on bioresorbable scaffolds, because the degradation process will be fully captured independently of the location of the struts and their greyscale appearance