Chapter 6 - Cerebrospinal fluid in the dementias

Alzheimer disease, vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, and frontotemporal dementia are the most common central nervous system disorders that cause progressive neurocognitive dysfunction and ultimately dementia. A number of biomarkers for pathologies reflecting each condition have been developed. Here, we review these and give an overview of the current state of practice and research regarding cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers for these disorders. The chapter discusses both established (most of which are tau- and amyloid β-related) and upcoming biomarkers and details, wherever appropriate, clinical use and differential diagnostics aspects

Minimizing magnetic fields for precision experiments

An increasing number of measurements in fundamental and applied physics rely on magnetically shielded environments with sub nano-Tesla residual magnetic fields. State of the art magnetically shielded rooms (MSRs) consist of up to seven layers of high permeability materials in combination with highly conductive shields. Proper magnetic equilibration is crucial to obtain such low magnetic fields with small gradients in any MSR. Here we report on a scheme to magnetically equilibrate MSRs with a 10 times reduced duration of the magnetic equilibration sequence and a significantly lower magnetic field with improved homogeneity. For the search of the neutron's electric dipole moment, our finding corresponds to a linear improvement in the systematic reach and a 40 % improvement of the statistical reach of the measurement. However, this versatile procedure can improve the performance of any MSR for any application.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Critical Behavior of Disordered Systems with a Free Surface

The behavior of homogeneous and disordered systems with a free boundary is described on the basis of group theory in the two-loop approximation directly in three-dimensional space. The effect of the free boundary on the regime of the bulk critical behavior is revealed. It is shown that the boundedness of the system slightly affects the regime of the bulk critical behavior in the case of the ordinary transition, whereas this effect is more noticeable in the case of the special transition. Surface critical phenomena are described for homogeneous and disordered systems, and the critical exponents are calculated in the two-loop approximation. It is shown that the effect of impurities is insignificant in the special phase transition, whereas it is more noticeable in the ordinary phase transition. The derived critical exponents are compared with the computer-simulation results.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure

Non-verbal sound processing in the primary progressive aphasias

Little is known about the processing of non-verbal sounds in the primary progressive aphasias. Here, we investigated the processing of complex non-verbal sounds in detail, in a consecutive series of 20 patients with primary progressive aphasia [12 with progressive non-fluent aphasia; eight with semantic dementia]. We designed a novel experimental neuropsychological battery to probe complex sound processing at early perceptual, apperceptive and semantic levels, using within-modality response procedures that minimized other cognitive demands and matching tests in the visual modality. Patients with primary progressive aphasia had deficits of non-verbal sound analysis compared with healthy age-matched individuals. Deficits of auditory early perceptual analysis were more common in progressive non-fluent aphasia, deficits of apperceptive processing occurred in both progressive non-fluent aphasia and semantic dementia, and deficits of semantic processing also occurred in both syndromes, but were relatively modality specific in progressive non-fluent aphasia and part of a more severe generic semantic deficit in semantic dementia. Patients with progressive non-fluent aphasia were more likely to show severe auditory than visual deficits as compared to patients with semantic dementia. These findings argue for the existence of core disorders of complex non-verbal sound perception and recognition in primary progressive aphasia and specific disorders at perceptual and semantic levels of cortical auditory processing in progressive non-fluent aphasia and semantic dementia, respectively

Spin-Correlation Coefficients and Phase-Shift Analysis for p+3^3He Elastic Scattering

Angular Distributions for the target spin-dependent observables A$_{0y}$, A$_{xx}$, and A$_{yy}$ have been measured using polarized proton beams at several energies between 2 and 6 MeV and a spin-exchange optical pumping polarized $^3$He target. These measurements have been included in a global phase-shift analysis following that of George and Knutson, who reported two best-fit phase-shift solutions to the previous global p+$^3$He elastic scattering database below 12 MeV. These new measurements, along with measurements of cross-section and beam-analyzing power made over a similar energy range by Fisher \textit{et al.}, allowed a single, unique solution to be obtained. The new measurements and phase-shifts are compared with theoretical calculations using realistic nucleon-nucleon potential models.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Power-Based Droop Control in DC Microgrids Enabling Seamless Disconnection From Upstream Grids

This paper proposes a local power-based droop controller for distributed energy resource converters in dc microgrids that are connected to upstream grids by grid-interface converters. During normal operation, the grid-interface converter imposes the microgrid bus voltage, and the proposed controller allows power flow regulation at distributed energy resource converters\u2019 output. On the other hand, during abnormal operation of the grid-interface converter (e.g., due to faults in the upstream grid), the proposed controller allows bus voltage regulation by droop control. Notably, the controller can autonomously convert from power flow control to droop control, without any need of bus voltage variation detection schemes or communication with other microgrid components, which enables seamless transitions between these two modes of operation. Considering distributed energy resource converters employing the power-based droop control, the operation modes of a single converter and of the whole microgrid are defined and investigated herein. The controller design is also introduced. Furthermore, the power sharing performance of this control approach is analyzed and compared with that of classical droop control. The experimental results from a laboratory-scale dc microgrid prototype are reported to show the final performances of the proposed power-based droop control

Understanding adhesion at as-deposited interfaces from ab initio thermodynamics of deposition growth: thin-film alumina on titanium carbide

We investigate the chemical composition and adhesion of chemical vapour deposited thin-film alumina on TiC using and extending a recently proposed nonequilibrium method of ab initio thermodynamics of deposition growth (AIT-DG) [Rohrer J and Hyldgaard P 2010 Phys. Rev. B 82 045415]. A previous study of this system [Rohrer J, Ruberto C and Hyldgaard P 2010 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 22 015004] found that use of equilibrium thermodynamics leads to predictions of a non-binding TiC/alumina interface, despite the industrial use as a wear-resistant coating. This discrepancy between equilibrium theory and experiment is resolved by the AIT-DG method which predicts interfaces with strong adhesion. The AIT-DG method combines density functional theory calculations, rate-equation modelling of the pressure evolution of the deposition environment and thermochemical data. The AIT-DG method was previously used to predict prevalent terminations of growing or as-deposited surfaces of binary materials. Here we extent the method to predict surface and interface compositions of growing or as-deposited thin films on a substrate and find that inclusion of the nonequilibrium deposition environment has important implications for the nature of buried interfaces.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, submitted to J. Phys.: Condens. Matte