616 research outputs found

    Phase Control and Eclipse Avoidance in Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits

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    The baseline trajectory proposed for the Gateway is a southern Earth-Moon L2 Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO). Designed to avoid eclipses, the NRHO exhibits a resonance with the lunar synodic period. The current investigation details the eclipse behavior in the baseline NRHO. Then, phase control is added to the orbit maintenance algorithm to regulate perilune passage time and maintain the eclipse-free characteristics of the Gateway reference orbit. A targeting strategy is designed to periodically target back to the long-horizon virtual reference if the orbit diverges over time in the presence of additional perturbations

    Scale-Invariance and the Strong Coupling Problem

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    The effective theory of adiabatic fluctuations around arbitrary Friedmann-Robertson-Walker backgrounds - both expanding and contracting - allows for more than one way to obtain scale-invariant two-point correlations. However, as we show in this paper, it is challenging to produce scale-invariant fluctuations that are weakly coupled over the range of wavelengths accessible to cosmological observations. In particular, requiring the background to be a dynamical attractor, the curvature fluctuations are scale-invariant and weakly coupled for at least 10 e-folds only if the background is close to de Sitter space. In this case, the time-translation invariance of the background guarantees time-independent n-point functions. For non-attractor solutions, any predictions depend on assumptions about the evolution of the background even when the perturbations are outside of the horizon. For the simplest such scenario we identify the regions of the parameter space that avoid both classical and quantum mechanical strong coupling problems. Finally, we present extensions of our results to backgrounds in which higher-derivative terms play a significant role.Comment: 17 pages + appendices, 3 figures; v2: typos fixe

    Optical computing of quantum revivals

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    Interference is the mechanism through which waves can be structured into the most fascinating patterns. While for sensing, imaging, trapping, or in fundamental investigations, structured waves play nowadays an important role and are becoming subject of many interesting studies. Using a coherent optical field as a probe, we show how to structure light into distributions presenting collapse and revival structures in its wavefront. These distributions are obtained from the Fourier spectrum of an arrangement of aperiodic diffracting structures. Interestingly, the resulting interference may present quasiperiodic structures of diffraction peaks on a number of distance scales, even though the diffracting structure is not periodic. We establish an analogy with revival phenomena in the evolution of quantum mechanical systems and illustrate this computation numerically and experimentally, obtaining excellent agreement with the proposed theory.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

    Electric field control of a quantum spin liquid in weak Mott insulators

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    The triangular lattice Hubbard model at strong coupling, whose effective spin model contains both Heisenberg and ring exchange interactions, exhibits a rich phase diagram as the ratio of the hopping tt to onsite Coulomb repulsion UU is tuned. This includes a chiral spin liquid (CSL) phase. Nevertheless, this exotic phase remains challenging to realize experimentally because a given material has a fixed value of t/Ut/U that can difficultly be tuned with external stimuli. One approach to address this problem is applying a DC electric field, which renormalizes the exchange interactions as electrons undergo virtual hopping processes; in addition to creating virtual doubly occupied sites, electrons must overcome electric potential energy differences. Performing a small t/Ut/U expansion to fourth order, we derive the ring exchange model in the presence of an electric field and find that it not only introduces spatial anisotropy but also tends to enhance the ring exchange term compared to the dominant nearest-neighbor Heisenberg interaction. Thus, increasing the electric field serves as a way to increase the importance of the ring exchange at constant t/Ut/U. Through density matrix renormalization group calculations, we compute the ground state phase diagram of the ring exchange model for two different electric field directions. In both cases, we find that the electric field shifts the phase boundary of the CSL towards a smaller ratio of t/Ut/U. Therefore, the electric field can drive a magnetically ordered state into the CSL. This explicit demonstration opens the door to tuning other quantum spin systems into spin liquid phases via the application of an electric field.Comment: 9 + 17 pages, 10 + 13 figure

    Practice patterns for acute ischemic stroke workup: A longitudinal population‐based study

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    Background We examined practice patterns of inpatient testing to identify stroke etiologies and treatable risk factors for acute ischemic stroke recurrence. Methods and Results We identified stroke cases and related diagnostic testing from four 1‐year study periods (July 1993 to June 1994, 1999, 2005, and 2010) of the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Stroke Study. Patients aged ≥18 years were included. We focused on evaluation of extracranial arteries for carotid stenosis and assessment of atrial fibrillation because randomized controlled trials supported treatment of these conditions for stroke prevention across all 4 study periods. In each study period, we also recorded stroke etiology, as determined by diagnostic testing and physician adjudication. An increasing proportion of stroke patients received assessment of both extracranial arteries and the heart over time (50%, 58%, 74%, and 78% in the 1993–1994, 1999, 2005, and 2010 periods, respectively; P &lt;0.0001 for trend), with the most dramatic individual increases in echocardiography (57%, 63%, 77%, and 83%, respectively). Concurrently, we observed a decrease in strokes of unknown etiology (47%, 48%, 41%, and 38%, respectively; P &lt;0.0001 for trend). We also found a significant increase in strokes of other known causes (32%, 25%, 45% and 59%, respectively; P &lt;0.0001 for trend). Conclusions Stroke workup for treatable causes of stroke are being used more frequently over time, and this is associated with a decrease in cryptogenic strokes. Future study of whether better determination of treatable stroke etiologies translates to a decrease in stroke recurrence at the population level will be essential. </jats:sec

    Kasner and Mixmaster behavior in universes with equation of state w \ge 1

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    We consider cosmological models with a scalar field with equation of state w1w\ge 1 that contract towards a big crunch singularity, as in recent cyclic and ekpyrotic scenarios. We show that chaotic mixmaster oscillations due to anisotropy and curvature are suppressed, and the contraction is described by a homogeneous and isotropic Friedmann equation if w>1w>1. We generalize the results to theories where the scalar field couples to p-forms and show that there exists a finite value of ww, depending on the p-forms, such that chaotic oscillations are suppressed. We show that Z2Z_2 orbifold compactification also contributes to suppressing chaotic behavior. In particular, chaos is avoided in contracting heterotic M-theory models if w>1w>1 at the crunch.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures, minor changes, references adde

    Selected psychiatric problems among college students in two Arab countries: comparison with the USA

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    Abstract Background Psychiatric problems among college students on USA campuses are common. Little is known about similar problems in developing countries, particularly the Arab region. The goal of this study was to assess the frequency of selected psychiatric problems among college students in two Arab countries: Qatar and Lebanon, and to compare them to the USA. Methods The Healthy Minds Study, an online confidential survey of common psychiatric symptoms designed for college campuses was used. We used the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) to screen for major depression, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) to screen for generalized anxiety and the SCOFF questionnaire to screen for eating disorders. Comparisons were made using ANOVA, Chi-Square tests and logistic regressions. Results A total of 1841 students participated in the study. The rates of depression (PHQ-9 ≥ 12), generalized anxiety (GAD-7 ≥ 10) and eating disorders (SCOFF≥3) at the combined Arab universities were 34.6, 36.1 and 20.4% respectively. The corresponding rates in the USA were: 12.8, 15.9 and 6.8% (p < 0.001 for all measures). The impact of psychiatric problems on functioning in general and academic performance in particular was more severe in the Arab countries compared to the USA (p < 0.001). Independent predictors of psychiatric problems in general included location, female gender, financial difficulties and poor grades. Being religious had a protective association with mental health. Conclusion The rates of depression, anxiety and eating disorders were significantly higher among college students in Qatar and Lebanon compared to the USA. Additional research is needed to determine whether these results reflect methodological limitations or true differences in psychopathology across these populations. If replicated, the results indicate that the psychiatric problems on college campuses in the USA are a microcosm of a global problem that needs global solutions.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143849/1/12888_2018_Article_1718.pd

    Capabilities of GPT-4 in ophthalmology: an analysis of model entropy and progress towards human-level medical question answering

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    Background: Evidence on the performance of Generative Pre-trained Transformer 4 (GPT-4), a large language model (LLM), in the ophthalmology question-answering domain is needed. // Methods: We tested GPT-4 on two 260-question multiple choice question sets from the Basic and Clinical Science Course (BCSC) Self-Assessment Program and the OphthoQuestions question banks. We compared the accuracy of GPT-4 models with varying temperatures (creativity setting) and evaluated their responses in a subset of questions. We also compared the best-performing GPT-4 model to GPT-3.5 and to historical human performance. // Results: GPT-4–0.3 (GPT-4 with a temperature of 0.3) achieved the highest accuracy among GPT-4 models, with 75.8% on the BCSC set and 70.0% on the OphthoQuestions set. The combined accuracy was 72.9%, which represents an 18.3% raw improvement in accuracy compared with GPT-3.5 (p<0.001). Human graders preferred responses from models with a temperature higher than 0 (more creative). Exam section, question difficulty and cognitive level were all predictive of GPT-4-0.3 answer accuracy. GPT-4-0.3’s performance was numerically superior to human performance on the BCSC (75.8% vs 73.3%) and OphthoQuestions (70.0% vs 63.0%), but the difference was not statistically significant (p=0.55 and p=0.09). // Conclusion: GPT-4, an LLM trained on non-ophthalmology-specific data, performs significantly better than its predecessor on simulated ophthalmology board-style exams. Remarkably, its performance tended to be superior to historical human performance, but that difference was not statistically significant in our study
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