No effect of Majorana phases in neutrino oscillations

It is shown that the Majorana phases of the neutrino mixing matrix cannot have any effect in neutrino oscillations, contrary to the argument presented in arXiv:0912.5266. It is also shown that in a charged–current weak interaction process it is not possible to create a coherent superposition of different flavor neutrinos which is independent of the associated charged leptons.     

Flow characteristics in a model of a left ventricle in the presence of a dysfunctional mitral mechanical heart valve

Journal of Visualization -     

Nature optimizes the swirling flow in the human left ventricle

The asymmetry of the blood flow in the human left ventricle is commonly assumed to facilitate the following ejection of blood in the primary circulation. The intraventricular flow is here studied by the numerical solution of the governing equations written in a prolate spheroid geometry with moving walls. The physiological parameters are taken from pediatric clinical data; then, the entering jet is artificially displaced to modify the asymmetry of the flow. The analysis of flow patterns confirms that the physiological case looks to best comply with the transition from the filling to the ejection phase. The flow energy dissipation is found to be minimized about the physiological conditions. An unnatural asymmetry, as given by cardiac diseases or valvular replacement, could reduce the efficiency of the heart pump by over 10%, thus augmenting the work required by the cardiac muscle.     

Changes in the structures and phases of tin-fullerite films during annealing

The patterns of change in the structure and phase composition of tin-fullerite films subjected to thermal annealing in vacuum at different temperatures (430, 450, 470, and 490 K) are studied using scanning electron microscopy, atomic-force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray spectrum microanalysis. It is established that annealing at T = 450 K or higher leads to significant changes in the structures and phases of films; namely, new phases Sn _x C₆₀ are formed in the form of threadlike crystals with lengths of 6 μm containing 98 at % C and 2 at % Sn and ball-shaped isolations with diameters up to 12 μm consisting of 50 at % C and 50 at % Sn.     

On the existence of rapid oscillations in various phases of quasi-one-dimensional (TMTSF)2PF6

Magnetoresistance in (TMTSF)₂PF₆ has been studied. It have been found that rapid oscillations of the magnetoresistance are absent in the metallic state and are present in the spin-ordered states solely, including both the lowest and higher order FISDW states. The spin-ordered state, which had previously been believed to be insulating, is not totally gapped; at least, at a finite temperature, there remains a vestigial Fermi surface comprising 2D metallic “pockets.” Our data agree qualitatively with the theory that considers the coexistence of two spin-density waves with two respective nesting vectors. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Spontaneous oscillations and waves during chemical vapor deposition of InN

We report observations of self-sustaining spatiotemporal chemical oscillations during metal-organic chemical vapor deposition of InN onto GaN. Under constant supply of vapor precursors trimethylindium and NH3, the condensed-phase cycles between crystalline islands of InN and elemental In droplets. Propagating fronts between regions of InN and In occur with linear, circular, and spiral geometries. The results are described by a model in which the nitrogen activity produced by surface-catalyzed NH3 decomposition varies with the exposed surface areas of GaN, InN, and In.     

Effect of the architecture of the left ventricle on the speed of the excitation wave in muscle fibers

It is known that preferential paths for the propagation of an electrical excitation wave in the human ventricular myocardium are associated with muscle fibers in tissue. The speed of the excitation wave along a fiber is several times higher than that across the direction of the fiber. To estimate the effect of the architecture and anisotropy of the myocardium of the left ventricle on the process of its electrical activation, we have studied the relation between the speed of the electrical excitation wave in a one-dimensional isolated myocardial fiber consisting of sequentially coupled cardiomyocytes and in an identical fiber located in the wall of a threedimensional anatomical model of the left ventricle. It has been shown that the speed of a wavefront along the fiber in the three-dimensional myocardial tissue is much higher than that in the one-dimensional fiber. The acceleration of the signal is due to the rotation of directions of fibers in the wall and to the position of the excitation wavefront with respect to the direction of this fiber. The observed phenomenon is caused by the approach of the excitable tissue with rotational anisotropy in its properties to a pseudoisotropic tissue.     

Quantum oscillations and beats in X-ray diffraction during film growth

X-ray diffraction from a growing film at an anti-Bragg point should exhibit bilayer oscillations caused by interference. In an experiment of TiN film growth by laser ablation onto sapphire, an unexpected beating envelope function is found to modulate the oscillations. The successive nodes and antinodes are identified with the development of new growth domains separated by one atomic layer in thickness. This effect allows atomic layer counting of the film thickness distribution. The results imply that the growth is not characterized by a continuum stochastic process, as usually assumed.     

Hybrid segmentation of left ventricle in cardiac MRI using gaussian-mixture model and region restricted dynamic programming

Segmentation of the left ventricle from cardiac magnetic resonance images (MRI) is very important to quantitatively analyze global and regional cardiac function. The aim of this study is to develop a novel and robust algorithm which can improve the accuracy of automatic left ventricle segmentation on short-axis cardiac MRI. The database used in this study consists of three data sets obtained from the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Each data set contains 15 cases (4 ischemic heart failures, 4 non-ischemic heart failures, 4 left ventricle (LV) hypertrophies and 3 normal cases). Three key techniques are developed in this segmentation algorithm: (1) ray scanning approach is designed for segmentation of images with left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT), (2) a region restricted technique is employed for epicardial contour extraction, and (3) an edge map with non-maxima gradient suppression approach is put forward to improve the dynamic programming to derive the epicardial boundary. The validation experiments were performed on a pool of data sets of 45 cases. For both endo- and epi-cardial contours of our results, percentage of good contours is about 91%, the average perpendicular distance is about 2 mm. The overlapping dice metric is about 0.92. The regression and determination coefficient between the experts and our proposed method on the ejection fraction (EF) is 1.01 and 0.9375, respectively; they are 0.9 and 0.8245 for LV mass. The proposed segmentation method shows the better performance and is very promising in improving the accuracy of computer-aided diagnosis systems in cardiovascular diseases.     

On the interpretation of the RHEED intensity oscillations during the growth of vicinal faces

A quantitative treatment of the crystallization kinetics in MBE growth of vicinal surfaces results the relation l ²=2D _sK between the surface diffusion coefficient D _s, the time for a monolayer deposition and the interstep distance l at which the RHEED intensity oscillations disappear. The correction factor K depends on the size and the energy of the two-dimensional critical nucleus and it is estimated to be smaller than 10^–2. The currently used interpretation of the RHEED intensity oscillations ignores the correction factor K and, therefore, the calculated values of D _s are several orders of magnitude smaller than its real values. The surface transport during the time of growth interruption is discussed in connection with the tendency to three dimensional growth at every second interface (where a deposition of the material with strong intermolecular bonds starts) of a small period superlattice.     

Mapping of left ventricle wall thickness in mice using 11.7-T magnetic resonance imaging

BackgroundThe left ventricle (LV) wall thickness is an important and routinely measured cardiologic parameter. Here we introduce three-dimensional (3D) mapping of LV wall thickness and function using a self-gated magnetic resonance (MR) sequence for ultra-high-field 11.7-T MR cine imaging of mouse hearts.Methods and resultsSix male C57BL/6-j mice were subjected to 11.7-T MR imaging (MRI). Three standard views—short axis, long axis four-chamber, and long axis two-chamber—and eight consecutive short axis scans from the apex to base were performed for each mouse. The resulting 11 self-gated cine images were used for fast low-angle shot analysis with a navigator echo over an observation period of approximately 35 min. The right ventricle (RV) and LV were identified in the short axis and four-chamber views. On 3D color-coded maps, the interventricular septum wall (diastole: 0.94 ± 0.05 mm, systole: 1.20 ± 0.09 mm) and LV free wall (diastole: 1.07 ± 0.15 mm, systole: 1.79 ± 0.11 mm) thicknesses were measured.ConclusionThis 3D wall thickness mapping technique can be used to observe regional wall thickness at the end-diastole and end-systole. Self-gated cine imaging based on ultra-high-field MRI can be used to accurately and easily measure cardiac function and wall thickness in normal mouse hearts. As in the preclinical study, this versatile and simple method will be clinically useful for the high-field-MRI evaluation of cardiac function and wall thickness.     

The effect of respiratory oscillations in heart rate on detrended fluctuation analysis

Characterization of heart rate using detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) is impeded by respiratory oscillations. In particular, the short-term exponent measured from 15 to 30 beats is compromised in the DFA. We reconstruct respiratory signal from electrocardiograms and attenuate the respiratory oscillation in the heart rate using a frequency-dependent subtraction approach. We validate this method by applying it to an electrocardiogram signal simulated using a coupled differential equation with the respiratory oscillation modelled using a sine function. The exponent estimated using the proposed approach agreed with the exponent incorporated in the model within a narrow range. In contrast, the exponent obtained from the raw data deviated from the expected value. Furthermore, the exponents obtained for the raw heart rate are smaller than the exponents obtained for the respiration oscillation attenuated heart rate. We apply this approach to heart rate measured from 12 preterm infants that were being treated for prematurity related complications. As observed in the simulated data, we show that compared to the raw heart rate, the respiratory oscillation attenuated heart rate shows higher short-term exponent (p < 0.001).