14,488 research outputs found
Comment on: Kinetic Roughening in Slow Combustion of Paper
We comment on a recent Letter by Maunuksela et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 1515
(1997)].Comment: 1 page, 1 figure, http://polymer.bu.edu/~hmakse/Home.htm
Extended-release niacin increases anti-apolipoprotein A-I antibodies that block the antioxidant effect of high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol: the EXPLORE clinical trial.
Extended-release niacin (ERN) is the most effective agent for increasing high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C). Having previously identified anti-HDL antibodies, we investigated whether ERN affected the antioxidant capacity of HDL and whether ERN was associated with the production of antibodies against HDL (aHDL) and apolipoprotein A-I (aApoA-I).
METHODS:
Twenty-one patients older than 18 years, with HDL-C ≤40 mg dl-1 (men) or ≤50 mg dl-1 (women) were randomly assigned to receive daily ERN (n = 10) or placebo (n = 11) for two sequential 12-week periods, with 4 weeks of wash-out before cross-over. Primary outcome was change of paraoxonase-1 (PON1) activity and secondary outcomes were changes in aHDL and aApoA-I antibodies. Clinical Trial Unique Identifier: EudraCT 2006-006889-42.
RESULTS:
The effect of ERN on PON1 activity was nonsignificant (coefficient estimate 20.83 U l-1 , 95% confidence interval [CI] -9.88 to 51.53; P = 0.184). ERN was associated with an increase in HDL-C levels (coefficient estimate 5.21 mg dl-1 , 95% CI 1.16 to 9.25; P = 0.012) and its subclasses HDL2 (coefficient estimate 2.46 mg dl-1 , 95% CI 0.57 to 4.34; P = 0.011) and HDL3 (coefficient estimate 2.73 mg dl-1 , 95% CI 0.47 to 4.98; P = 0.018). ERN was significantly associated with the production of aApoA-I antibodies (coefficient estimate 0.25 μg ml-1 , 95% CI 0.09-0.40; P = 0.001). aApoA-I titres at baseline were correlated with decreased PON activity.
CONCLUSIONS:
The rise in HDL-C achieved with ERN was not matched by improved antioxidant capacity, eventually hampered by the emergence of aApoA-I antibodies. These results may explain why Niacin and other lipid lowering agents fail to reduce cardiovascular risk.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Ice Age Epochs and the Sun's Path Through the Galaxy
We present a calculation of the Sun's motion through the Milky Way Galaxy
over the last 500 million years. The integration is based upon estimates of the
Sun's current position and speed from measurements with Hipparcos and upon a
realistic model for the Galactic gravitational potential. We estimate the times
of the Sun's past spiral arm crossings for a range in assumed values of the
spiral pattern angular speed. We find that for a difference between the mean
solar and pattern speed of Omega_Sun - Omega_p = 11.9 +/- 0.7 km/s/kpc the Sun
has traversed four spiral arms at times that appear to correspond well with
long duration cold periods on Earth. This supports the idea that extended
exposure to the higher cosmic ray flux associated with spiral arms can lead to
increased cloud cover and long ice age epochs on Earth.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Percolative phase transition on ferromagnetic insulator manganites: uncorrelated to correlated polaron clusters
In this work, we report an atomic scale study on the ferromagnetic insulator
manganite LaMnO using PAC spectroscopy. Data analysis
reveals a nanoscopic transition from an undistorted to a Jahn-Teller-distorted
local environment upon cooling. The percolation thresholds of the two local
environments enclose a macroscopic structural transition
(Rhombohedric-Orthorhombic). Two distinct regimes of JT-distortions were found:
a high temperature regime where uncorrelated polaron clusters with severe
distortions of the MnO octahedra survive up to
and a low temperature regime where correlated regions have a weaker
JT-distorted symmetry.Comment: 4 pages, 4 Figures, submitted to PRL, new version with more data,
text reformulate
Stretched exponentials and power laws in granular avalanching
We introduce a model for granular avalanching which exhibits both stretched exponential and power law avalanching over its parameter range. Two modes of transport are incorporated, a rolling layer consisting of individual particles and the overdamped, sliding motion of particle clusters. The crossover in behaviour observed in experiments on piles of rice is attributed to a change in the dominant mode of transport. We predict that power law avalanching will be observed whenever surface flow is dominated by clustered motion.
Comment: 8 pages, more concise and some points clarified
Universal macroscopic background formation in surface super-roughening
We study a class of super-rough growth models whose structure factor
satisfies the Family-Vicsek scaling. We demonstrate that a macroscopic
background spontaneously develops in the local surface profile, which dominates
the scaling of the local surface width and the height-difference. The shape of
the macroscopic background takes a form of a finite-order polynomial whose
order is decided from the value of the global roughness exponent. Once the
macroscopic background is subtracted, the width of the resulting local surface
profile satisfies the Family-Vicsek scaling. We show that this feature is
universal to all super-rough growth models, and we also discuss the difference
between the macroscopic background formation and the pattern formation in other
models.Comment: 5 pages, LaTex, 1 figure, minor correction
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