441 research outputs found
Adding low-dose antidepressants to interferon alpha treatment for chronic hepatitis C improved psychiatric tolerability in a patient with schizoaffective psychosis
Treatment of chronic hepatitis C with interferon alpha (IFN-alpha) is relatively contraindicated in patients with psychiatric disorders because of possible severe psychiatric side effects. We report on a case of a female patient with a chronic schizoaffective psychosis, who was treated for 3 months with 3 x 3 mio IE IFN-alpha s.c./week because of a chronic hepatitis C (genotype Ib). Psychosis was stable with flupentixol monotherapy. After 2 months, she developed a severe depressive syndrome which lead to suicidal ideation. Until this time, she was without any antidepressive medication. Depressive symptoms disappeared after interferon therapy was stopped. Under prophylactic treatment with low-dose trimipramine (50 mg) or nefazodone (200 mg/day) therapy with IFN-alpha 3 x 3 mio IE/week was re-established after several months and again 2 years later adding ribavirin 1200 mg/day, a virustaticum. In contrast to the symptoms during monotherapy with IFN-alpha, during the time of both combination treatments, no psychiatric side effects occurred. While for ribavirin antidepressant effects are not known, we suppose that antidepressants may in serotonergic or noradrenergic caused by IFN-alpha. prevent changes neurotransmission caused by IFN-alpha. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel
Acoustic characterization of Hofstadter butterfly with resonant scatterers
We are interested in the experimental characterization of the Hofstadter
butterfly by means of acoustical waves. The transmission of an acoustic pulse
through an array of 60 variable and resonant scatterers periodically distribued
along a waveguide is studied. An arbitrary scattering arrangement is realized
by using the variable length of each resonator cavity. For a periodic
modulation, the structures of forbidden bands of the transmission reproduce the
Hofstadter butterfly. We compare experimental, analytical, and computational
realizations of the Hofstadter butterfly and we show the influence of the
resonances of the scatterers on the structure of the butterfly
Ultra-stable implanted 83Rb/83mKr electron sources for the energy scale monitoring in the KATRIN experiment
The KATRIN experiment aims at the direct model-independent determination of
the average electron neutrino mass via the measurement of the endpoint region
of the tritium beta decay spectrum. The electron spectrometer of the MAC-E
filter type is used, requiring very high stability of the electric filtering
potential. This work proves the feasibility of implanted 83Rb/83mKr calibration
electron sources which will be utilised in the additional monitor spectrometer
sharing the high voltage with the main spectrometer of KATRIN. The source
employs conversion electrons of 83mKr which is continuously generated by 83Rb.
The K-32 conversion line (kinetic energy of 17.8 keV, natural line width of 2.7
eV) is shown to fulfill the KATRIN requirement of the relative energy stability
of +/-1.6 ppm/month. The sources will serve as a standard tool for continuous
monitoring of KATRIN's energy scale stability with sub-ppm precision. They may
also be used in other applications where the precise conversion lines can be
separated from the low energy spectrum caused by the electron inelastic
scattering in the substrate.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figures, 1 table, minor revision of the preprint,
accepted by JINST on 5.2.201
Sheared bioconvection in a horizontal tube
The recent interest in using microorganisms for biofuels is motivation enough
to study bioconvection and cell dispersion in tubes subject to imposed flow. To
optimize light and nutrient uptake, many microorganisms swim in directions
biased by environmental cues (e.g. phototaxis in algae and chemotaxis in
bacteria). Such taxes inevitably lead to accumulations of cells, which, as many
microorganisms have a density different to the fluid, can induce hydrodynamic
instabilites. The large-scale fluid flow and spectacular patterns that arise
are termed bioconvection. However, the extent to which bioconvection is
affected or suppressed by an imposed fluid flow, and how bioconvection
influences the mean flow profile and cell transport are open questions. This
experimental study is the first to address these issues by quantifying the
patterns due to suspensions of the gravitactic and gyrotactic green
biflagellate alga Chlamydomonas in horizontal tubes subject to an imposed flow.
With no flow, the dependence of the dominant pattern wavelength at pattern
onset on cell concentration is established for three different tube diameters.
For small imposed flows, the vertical plumes of cells are observed merely to
bow in the direction of flow. For sufficiently high flow rates, the plumes
progressively fragment into piecewise linear diagonal plumes, unexpectedly
inclined at constant angles and translating at fixed speeds. The pattern
wavelength generally grows with flow rate, with transitions at critical rates
that depend on concentration. Even at high imposed flow rates, bioconvection is
not wholly suppressed and perturbs the flow field.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, published version available at
http://iopscience.iop.org/1478-3975/7/4/04600
A pulsed, mono-energetic and angular-selective UV photo-electron source for the commissioning of the KATRIN experiment
The KATRIN experiment aims to determine the neutrino mass scale with a
sensitivity of 200 meV/c^2 (90% C.L.) by a precision measurement of the shape
of the tritium -spectrum in the endpoint region. The energy analysis of
the decay electrons is achieved by a MAC-E filter spectrometer. To determine
the transmission properties of the KATRIN main spectrometer, a mono-energetic
and angular-selective electron source has been developed. In preparation for
the second commissioning phase of the main spectrometer, a measurement phase
was carried out at the KATRIN monitor spectrometer where the device was
operated in a MAC-E filter setup for testing. The results of these measurements
are compared with simulations using the particle-tracking software
"Kassiopeia", which was developed in the KATRIN collaboration over recent
years.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, submitted to European Physical Journal
Quantum Hall Effect on the Hofstadter Butterfly
Motivated by recent experimental attempts to detect the Hofstadter butterfly,
we numerically calculate the Hall conductivity in a modulated two-dimensional
electron system with disorder in the quantum Hall regime. We identify the
critical energies where the states are extended for each of butterfly subbands,
and obtain the trajectory as a function of the disorder. Remarkably, we find
that when the modulation becomes anisotropic, the critical energy branches
accompanying a change of the Hall conductivity.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure
Precision measurement of the fundamental vibrational frequencies of tritium-bearing hydrogen molecules: T, DT, HT
High-resolution coherent Raman spectroscopic measurements of all three
tritium-containing molecular hydrogen isotopologues T, DT and HT were
performed to determine the ground electronic state fundamental Q-branch () transition frequencies at accuracies of
cm. An over hundred-fold improvement in accuracy over previous
experiments allows the comparison with the latest ab initio calculations in the
framework of Non-Adiabatic Perturbation Theory including nonrelativisitic,
relativisitic and QED contributions. Excellent agreement is found between
experiment and theory, thus providing a verification of the validity of the
NAPT-framework for these tritiated species. While the transition frequencies
were corrected for ac-Stark shifts, the contributions of non-resonant
background as well as quantum interference effects between resonant features in
the nonlinear spectroscopy were quantitatively investigated, also leading to
corrections to the transition frequencies. Methods of saturated CARS with the
observation of Lamb dips, as well as the use of continuous-wave radiation for
the Stokes frequency were explored, that might pave the way for future
higher-accuracy CARS measurements.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figure
Duality Relation among Periodic Potential Problems in the Lowest Landau Level
Using a momentum representation of a magnetic von Neumann lattice, we study a
two-dimensional electron in a uniform magnetic field and obtain one-particle
spectra of various periodic short-range potential problems in the lowest Landau
level.We find that the energy spectra satisfy a duality relation between a
period of the potential and a magnetic length. The energy spectra consist of
the Hofstadter-type bands and flat bands. We also study the connection between
a periodic short-range potential problem and a tight-binding model.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, final version to appear in PR
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