Community structure and modularity in networks of correlated brain activity

Functional connectivity patterns derived from neuroimaging data may be represented as graphs or networks, with individual image voxels or anatomically-defined structures representing the nodes, and a measure of correlation between the responses in each pair of nodes determining the edges. This explicit network representation allows network-analysis approaches to be applied to the characterization of functional connections within the brain. Much recent research in complex networks has focused on methods to identify community structure, i.e. cohesive clusters of strongly interconnected nodes. One class of such algorithms determines a partition of a network into 'sub-networks' based on the optimization of a modularity parameter, thus also providing a measure of the degree of segregation versus integration in the full network. Here, we demonstrate that a community structure algorithm based on the maximization of modularity, applied to a functional connectivity network calculated from the responses to acute fluoxetine challenge in the rat, can identify communities whose distributions correspond to anatomically meaningful structures and include compelling functional subdivisions in the brain. We also discuss the biological interpretation of the modularity parameter in terms of segregation and integration of brain function.     

Stress,body force,and momentum balance in mixture theory

Summary A general momentum balance for a mixture constituent is motivated from corpuscular considerations. The interpretations of stress and internal body force in the separate cases of ionic and non-ionic species are indicated. The Gurtin-Oliver-Williams paradox concerning the interpretation of partial stress is resolved, and relations between total and inner stress shown to be more complex than usually assumed. Comparison is made with kinetic theory.

---

Sommario Una relazione generale di bilancio della quantità di moto per un costituente di una mistura è ricavata sulla base di considerazioni particellari. Interpretazioni di stress e forza interna di volume sono fornite per costituenti sia carichi sia neutri. In tal modo il paradosso di Gurtin, Oliver e Williams sull'interpretazione degli stress parziali viene risolto e, inoltre, le relazioni tra stress totali e parziali risultano in generale più complesse di quanto si assuma solitamente. Infine si effettua un confronto con la teoria cinetica.

     

Magnetic field induced orbital polarization in cubic YbInNi4: determining the quartet ground state using x-ray linear dichroism

We have been able to induce a linear dichroic signal in the Yb M(5) x-ray absorption white line of cubic YbInNi(4) by the application of a magnetic field. The nonzero integrated intensity of the magnetic field induced dichroic spectrum indicates a net noncubic 4f orbital polarization. A quantitative analysis of the temperature and field strength dependence establishes that the crystal-field ground state is a Γ(8) quartet. The results demonstrate the potential of magnetic field induced linear dichroism as a new powerful approach for the investigation of the degeneracy and orbital degrees of freedom of cubic heavy-fermion and Kondo systems.     

Well-posed elliptic Neumann problems involving irregular data and domains

Non-linear elliptic Neumann problems, possibly in irregular domains and with data affected by low integrability properties, are taken into account. Existence, uniqueness and continuous dependence on the data of generalized solutions are established under a suitable balance between the integrability of the datum and the (ir)regularity of the domain. The latter is described in terms of isocapacitary inequalities. Applications to various classes of domains are also presented.