Childhood Psychosocial Determinants of Cardiovascular Health

Understanding risk and protective factors that impact cardiovascular health is of utmost importance. There is ample evidence that cardiovascular health begins in childhood, tracks over time, and is subject to adverse social influences. This paper reviews key studies examining the relations of psychosocial factors in childhood to cardiovascular health in adulthood. The existing literature provides evidence for both individual and cumulative effects of childhood psychosocial factors on adult cardiovascular health across the population, although the specific mechanisms underlying these relationships are not yet fully understood. This paper also includes a discussion of evidence-based strategies for prevention and treatment of childhood psychosocial problems. The extent to which these programs lead to improved cardiovascular health in high-risk groups or across the population by impacting psychosocial factors has not yet been studied, but is a clear future direction for research and policy

Flow-induced voltage and current generation in carbon nanotubes

New experimental results, and a plausible theoretical understanding thereof, are presented for the flow-induced currents and voltages observed in single-walled carbon nanotube samples. In our experiments, the electrical response was found to be strongly sublinear -- nearly logarithmic -- in the flow speed over a wide range, and its direction could be controlled by an electrochemical biasing of the nanotubes. These experimental findings are inconsistent with the conventional idea of a streaming potential as the efficient cause. Here we present a new, physically appealing, Langevin-equation based treatment of the nanotube charge carriers, assumed to be moving under coulombic forcing by the correlated ionic fluctuations, advected by the liquid in flow. The resulting 'Doppler-shifted' force-force correlation, as seen by the charge carriers drifting in the nanotube, is shown to give a strongly sublinear response, broadly in agreement with experiments.Comment: 11 pages including 3 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev B (2004

Origin of the unusual dependence of Raman D band on excitation wavelength in graphite-like materials

We have revisited the still unresolved puzzle of the dispersion of the Raman disordered-induced D band as a function of laser excitation photon energy E$_L$ in graphite-like materials. We propose that the D-mode is a combination of an optic phonon at the K-point in the Brillioun zone and an acoustic phonon whose momentum is determined uniquely by the double resonance condition. The fit of the experimental data with the double-resonance model yields the reduced effective mass of 0.025m$_{e}$ for the electron-hole pairs corresponding to the A$_{2}$ transition, in agreement with other experiments. The model can also explain the difference between $\omega_S$ and $\omega_{AS}$ for D and D$^{\star}$ modes, and predicts its dependence on the Raman excitation frequency.Comment: 4 figures in eps forma

Superorbital Period in the High Mass X-ray Binary 2S 0114+650

We report the detection of a superorbital period in the high-mass X-ray binary 2S 0114+650. Analyses of data from the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) All-Sky Monitor (ASM) from 1996 January 5 to 2004 August 25 reveal a superorbital period of 30.7 +/- 0.1 d, in addition to confirming the previously reported neutron star spin period of 2.7 h and the binary orbital period of 11.6 d. It is unclear if the superorbital period can be ascribed to the precession of a warped accretion disc in the system.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, submitted to MNRAS 27th January 2005. Manuscript expanded to include discussion of evolution of periods, and hardness ratio variability. Number of figures increased from 5 to 9. Accepted for publication 19th December 200

Enhanced Raman and photoluminescence response in monolayer MoS2_2 due to laser healing of defects

Bound quasiparticles, negatively charged trions and neutral excitons, are associated with the direct optical transitions at the K-points of the Brillouin zone for monolayer MoS$_2$. The change in the carrier concentration, surrounding dielectric constant and defect concentration can modulate the photoluminescence and Raman spectra. Here we show that exposing the monolayer MoS$_2$ in air to a modest laser intensity for a brief period of time enhances simultaneously the photoluminescence (PL) intensity associated with both trions and excitons, together with $\sim$ 3 to 5 times increase of the Raman intensity of first and second order modes. The simultaneous increase of PL from trions and excitons cannot be understood based only on known-scenario of depletion of electron concentration in MoS$_2$ by adsorption of O$_2$ and H$_2$O molecules. This is explained by laser induced healing of defect states resulting in reduction of non-radiative Auger processes. This laser healing is corroborated by an observed increase of intensity of both the first order and second order 2LA(M) Raman modes by a factor of $\sim$ 3 to 5. The A$_{1g}$ mode hardens by $\sim$ 1.4 cm$^{-1}$ whereas the E$^1_{2g}$ mode softens by $\sim$ 1 cm$^{-1}$. The second order 2LA(M) Raman mode at $\sim$ 440 cm$^{-1}$ shows an increase in wavenumber by $\sim$ 8 cm$^{-1}$ with laser exposure. These changes are a combined effect of change in electron concentrations and oxygen-induced lattice displacements.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, 201

Isospin effects on the mass dependence of balance energy

We study the effect of isospin degree of freedom on balance energy throughout the mass range between 50 and 350 for two sets of isotopic systems with N/Z = 1.16 and 1.33 as well as isobaric systems with N/Z = 1.0 and 1.4. Our findings indicate that different values of balance energy for two isobaric systems may be mainly due to the Coulomb repulsion. We also demonstrate clearly the dominance of Coulomb repulsion over symmetry energy.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures In this version the discussion is in terms of N/Z whereas in the journal the whole discussion is in terms of N/A. The conclusions remain unaffecte

Phonon renormalisation in doped bilayer graphene

We report phonon renormalisation in bilayer graphene as a function of doping. The Raman G peak stiffens and sharpens for both electron and hole doping, as a result of the non-adiabatic Kohn anomaly at the $\Gamma$ point. The bilayer has two conduction and valence subbands, with splitting dependent on the interlayer coupling. This results in a change of slope in the variation of G peak position with doping, which allows a direct measurement of the interlayer coupling strength.Comment: 5 figure

Ultrafast photoinduced enhancement of nonlinear optical response in 15-atom gold clusters on indium tin oxide conducting film

We show that the third order optical nonlinearity of 15-atom gold clusters is significantly enhanced when in contact with indium tin oxide (ITO) conducting film. Open and close aperture z-scan experiments together with non-degenerate pump-probe differential transmission experiments were done using 80 fs laser pulses centered at 395 nm and 790 nm on gold clusters encased inside cyclodextrin cavities. We show that two photon absorption coefficient is enhanced by an order of magnitude as compared to that when the clusters are on pristine glass plate. The enhancement for the nonlinear optical refraction coefficient is ~3 times. The photo-induced excited state absorption using pump-probe experiments at pump wavelength of 395 nm and probe at 790 nm also show an enhancement by an order of magnitude. These results attributed to the excited state energy transfer in the coupled gold cluster-ITO system are different from the enhancement seen so far in charge donor-acceptor complexes and nanoparticle-conjugate polymer composites.Comment: To appear in Optics Express (2013); http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.21.00848

Femtosecond Photoexcited Carrier Dynamics in Reduced Graphene Oxide Suspensions and Films

We report ultrafast response of femtosecond photoexcited carriers in single layer reduced graphene oxide flakes suspended in water as well as few layer thick film deposited on indium tin oxide coated glass plate using pump-probe differential transmission spectroscopy at 790 nm. The carrier relaxation dynamics has three components: ~200 fs, 1 to 2 ps, and ~25 ps, all of them independent of pump fluence. It is seen that the second component (1 to 2 ps) assigned to the lifetime of hot optical phonons is larger for graphene in suspensions whereas other two time constants are the same for both the suspension and the film. The value of third order nonlinear susceptibility estimated from the pump-probe experiments is compared with that obtained from the open aperture Z-scan results for the suspension.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in International Journal of Nanoscience (IJN), 201