586 research outputs found
Functional specialization within rostral prefrontal cortex (Area 10): a meta-analysis
One of the least well understood regions of the human brain is rostral prefrontal cortex, approximating Brodmann's area 10. Here, we investigate the possibility that there are functional subdivisions within this region by conducting a meta-analysis of 104 functional neuroimaging studies (using positron emission tomography/functional magnetic resonance imaging). Studies involving working memory and episodic memory retrieval were disproportionately associated with lateral activations, whereas studies involving mentalizing (i.e., attending to one's own emotions and mental states or those of other agents) were disproportionately associated with medial activations. Functional variation was also observed along a rostral-caudal axis, with studies involving mentalizing yielding relatively caudal activations and studies involving multiple-task coordination yielding relatively rostral activations. A classification algorithm was trained to predict the task, given the coordinates of each activation peak. Performance was well above chance levels (74% for the three most common tasks; 45% across all eight tasks investigated) and generalized to data not included in the training set. These results point to considerable functional segregation within rostral prefrontal cortex
The geology of zinc in coals of the Illinois Basin
Final report to the U.S. Geological Survey, Branch of Eastern Mineral Resources, U.S. Department of Interior. June 1975 to September 1977.U.S. Department of Interior Grant 14-08-0001-G-249Ope
-dimensions Dirac fermions BEC-BCS cross-over thermodynamics
An effective Proca Lagrangian action is used to address the vector
condensation Lorentz violation effects on the equation of state of the strongly
interacting fermions system. The interior quantum fluctuation effects are
incorporated as an external field approximation indirectly through a fictive
generalized Thomson Problem counterterm background. The general analytical
formulas for the -dimensions thermodynamics are given near the unitary limit
region. In the non-relativistic limit for , the universal dimensionless
coefficient and energy gap are
reasonably consistent with the existed theoretical and experimental results. In
the unitary limit for and T=0, the universal coefficient can even
approach the extreme occasion corresponding to the infinite effective
fermion mass which can be mapped to the strongly coupled
two-dimensions electrons and is quite similar to the three-dimensions
Bose-Einstein Condensation of ideal boson gas. Instead, for , the
universal coefficient is negative, implying the non-existence of phase
transition from superfluidity to normal state. The solutions manifest the
quantum Ising universal class characteristic of the strongly coupled unitary
fermions gas.Comment: Improved versio
Photoionisation loading of large Sr+ ion clouds with ultrafast pulses
This paper reports on photoionisation loading based on ultrafast pulses of
singly-ionised strontium ions in a linear Paul trap. We take advantage of an
autoionising resonance of Sr neutral atoms to form Sr+ by two-photon absorption
of femtosecond pulses at a wavelength of 431nm. We compare this technique to
electron-bombardment ionisation and observe several advantages of
photoionisation. It actually allows the loading of a pure Sr+ ion cloud in a
low radio-frequency voltage amplitude regime. In these conditions up to 4x10^4
laser-cooled Sr+ ions were trapped
Prevention of tracheal cartilage injury with modified Griggs technique during percutaneous tracheostomy - Randomized controlled cadaver study
Introduction: Tracheal stenosis is the most common severe late complication of percutaneous tracheostomy causing significant decrease in quality of life. Applying modified Griggs technique reduced the number of late tracheal stenoses observed in our clinical study. The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanism of this relationship. Materials and methods: Forty-six cadavers were randomized into two groups according to the mode of intervention during 2006-2008. Traditional versus modified Griggs technique was applied in the two groups consequently. Wider incision, surgical preparation, and bidirectional forceps dilation of tracheal wall were applied in modified technique. Injured cartilages were inspected by sight and touch consequently. Age, gender, level of intervention, and number of injured tracheal cartilages were registered. Results: Significantly less frequent tracheal cartilage injury was observed after modified (9%) than original (91%) Griggs technique (p<0.001). A moderate association between cartilage injury and increasing age was observed, whereas the level of intervention (p=0.445) and to gender (p=0.35) was not related to injury. Risk of cartilage injury decreased significantly (OR: 0.0264, 95%, CI: 0.005-0.153) with modified Griggs technique as determined in adjusted logistic regression model. Discussion: Modified Griggs technique decreased the risk of tracheal cartilage injury significantly in our cadaver study. This observation may explain the decreased number of late tracheal stenosis after application of the modified Griggs method. © 2012 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapes
A renormalisation group approach to two-body scattering in the presence of long-range forces
We apply renormalisation-group methods to two-body scattering by a
combination of known long-range and unknown short-range potentials. We impose a
cut-off in the basis of distorted waves of the long-range potential and
identify possible fixed points of the short-range potential as this cut-off is
lowered to zero. The expansions around these fixed points define the power
countings for the corresponding effective field theories. Expansions around
nontrivial fixed points are shown to correspond to distorted-wave versions of
the effective-range expansion. These methods are applied to scattering in the
presence of Coulomb, Yukawa and repulsive inverse-square potentials.Comment: 22 pages (RevTeX), 4 figure
Hydrodynamical Description of 200 A GeV/c S+Au Collisions: Hadron and Electromagnetic Spectra
We study relativistic S+Au collisions at 200 A GeV/c using a hydrodynamical
approach. We test various equations of state (EOSs), which are used to describe
the strongly interacting matter at densities attainable in the CERN-SPS heavy
ion experiments. For each EOS, suitable initial conditions can be determined to
reproduce the experimental hadron spectra; this emphasizes the ambiguity
between the initial conditions and the EOS in such an approach. Simultaneously,
we calculate the resulting thermal photon and dielectron spectra, and compare
with experiments. If one allows the excitation of resonance states with
increasing temperature, the electro-magnetic signals from scenarios with and
without phase transition are very similar and are not resolvable within the
current experimental resolution. With regard to the CERES dilepton data, none
of the EOSs considered, in conjunction with the standard leading order dilepton
rates, succeed in reproducing the observed excess of dileptons below the rho
peak. Our work, however, suggests that an improved measurement of the photon
and dilepton spectra has the potential to strongly constrain the EOS.Comment: Uses REVTeX, 48 pages, 13 Postscript figure
Hadronic observables from SIS to SPS energies - anything strange with strangeness ?
We calculate and (+) rapidity
distributions and compare to experimental data from SIS to SPS energies within
the UrQMD and HSD transport approaches that are both based on string, quark,
diquark () and hadronic degrees of freedom. The
two transport models do not include any explicit phase transition to a
quark-gluon plasma (QGP). It is found that both approaches agree rather well
with each other and with the experimental rapidity distributions for protons,
's, and . Inspite of this apparent agreement both
transport models fail to reproduce the maximum in the excitation function for
the ratio found experimentally between 11 and 40 AGeV. A
comparison to the various experimental data shows that this 'failure' is
dominantly due to an insufficient description of pion rapidity distributions
rather than missing 'strangeness'. The modest differences in the transport
model results -- on the other hand -- can be attributed to different
implementations of string formation and fragmentation, that are not
sufficiently controlled by experimental data for the 'elementary' reactions in
vacuum.Comment: 46 pages, including 15 eps figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Astroparticle Physics with a Customized Low-Background Broad Energy Germanium Detector
The MAJORANA Collaboration is building the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, a 60 kg
array of high purity germanium detectors housed in an ultra-low background
shield at the Sanford Underground Laboratory in Lead, SD. The MAJORANA
DEMONSTRATOR will search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of 76Ge while
demonstrating the feasibility of a tonne-scale experiment. It may also carry
out a dark matter search in the 1-10 GeV/c^2 mass range. We have found that
customized Broad Energy Germanium (BEGe) detectors produced by Canberra have
several desirable features for a neutrinoless double-beta decay experiment,
including low electronic noise, excellent pulse shape analysis capabilities,
and simple fabrication. We have deployed a customized BEGe, the MAJORANA
Low-Background BEGe at Kimballton (MALBEK), in a low-background cryostat and
shield at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility in Virginia. This paper
will focus on the detector characteristics and measurements that can be
performed with such a radiation detector in a low-background environment.Comment: Submitted to NIMA Proceedings, SORMA XII. 9 pages, 4 figure
On the selection of AGN neutrino source candidates for a source stacking analysis with neutrino telescopes
The sensitivity of a search for sources of TeV neutrinos can be improved by
grouping potential sources together into generic classes in a procedure that is
known as source stacking. In this paper, we define catalogs of Active Galactic
Nuclei (AGN) and use them to perform a source stacking analysis. The grouping
of AGN into classes is done in two steps: first, AGN classes are defined, then,
sources to be stacked are selected assuming that a potential neutrino flux is
linearly correlated with the photon luminosity in a certain energy band (radio,
IR, optical, keV, GeV, TeV). Lacking any secure detailed knowledge on neutrino
production in AGN, this correlation is motivated by hadronic AGN models, as
briefly reviewed in this paper.
The source stacking search for neutrinos from generic AGN classes is
illustrated using the data collected by the AMANDA-II high energy neutrino
detector during the year 2000. No significant excess for any of the suggested
groups was found.Comment: 43 pages, 12 figures, accepted by Astroparticle Physic
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