Publications by authors named "Birkbeck"

Unconventional superconductivity, where electron pairing does not involve electron-phonon interactions, is often attributed to magnetic correlations in a material. Well known examples include high-T cuprates and uranium-based heavy fermion superconductors. Less explored are unconventional superconductors with strong spin-orbit coupling, where interactions between spin-polarised electrons and external magnetic field can result in multiple superconducting phases and field-induced transitions between them, a rare phenomenon in the superconducting state.

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This paper examines how conspiracy theories anchor affective communities through an analysis of the YouTube comment section for the actor and comedian turned political influencer Russell Brand. Comparing videos before and after Brand's shift to covid scepticism, I explore like counts, reply networks, and other commenting patterns in a dataset of 217,157 comments and conduct an in-depth analysis of 2000 top comments. The findings show first, a shift toward right-wing viewpoints; second, a reduction in comment length and comment replies alongside an increase in likes; third, a sharp rise in proclamations of Brand fandom; and fourth, a steep increase in references to conspiracy.

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  • A study looked at how often dogs have problems after getting blood transfusions, focusing on 858 dogs that received 1,542 transfusions from March to November 2022.
  • Out of the dogs, 8.9% experienced acute reactions when they got packed red blood cells, and 4.5% had reactions after receiving plasma products.
  • The study found that older stored blood and higher doses were linked to more reactions, so vets should pay attention to these factors when treating dogs.
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  • The study examined 30 cases of gastrointestinal pneumatosis (GP) in dogs and cats, noting that the most affected areas were the stomach, colon, and small intestine.
  • The majority of cases were related to gastrointestinal diseases, with common issues including gastric dilatation and hemorrhagic diarrhea, particularly in dogs receiving certain medications.
  • Of the cases, 54% of medically managed animals survived, while surgical intervention only led to survival in 20% of cases, indicating that GP is often linked to other underlying conditions rather than being a standalone issue.
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  • The study looks at two treatment options for early-stage breast cancer: breast-conserving surgery with radiation and mastectomy (removing the whole breast), to see which is better for survival.
  • Researchers examined a lot of studies from 2000 to 2023 to find evidence on which method helps patients live longer.
  • They found that breast-conserving surgery with radiation might be better for survival, with more evidence supporting this option than the older research from the 70s and 80s.
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Objective: Compare fasciculation rates between amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients and healthy controls in body regions relevant for diagnosing ALS using motor unit MRI (MUMRI) at baseline and 6 months follow-up, and relate this to single-channel surface EMG (SEMG).

Methods: Tongue, biceps brachii, paraspinals and lower legs were assessed with MUMRI and biceps brachii and soleus with SEMG in 10 healthy controls and 10 patients (9 typical ALS, 1 primary lateral sclerosis [PLS]).

Results: MUMRI-detected fasciculation rates in typical ALS patients were higher compared to healthy controls for biceps brachii (2.

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Introduction: Sarcopenia is the age-associated loss of muscle mass and strength. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) plays a central role in both mitochondrial function and cellular ageing processes implicated in sarcopenia. NAD concentrations are low in older people with sarcopenia, and increasing skeletal muscle NAD concentrations may offer a novel therapy for this condition.

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Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is routinely used in the musculoskeletal system to measure skeletal muscle structure and pathology in health and disease. Recently, it has been shown that MRI also has promise for detecting the functional changes, which occur in muscles, commonly associated with a range of neuromuscular disorders. This review focuses on novel adaptations of MRI, which can detect the activity of the functional sub-units of skeletal muscle, the motor units, referred to as "motor unit MRI (MUMRI).

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Objectives: To determine platelet function and assess fibrinolysis in dogs following trauma using multiple electrical impedance aggregometry and a modified thromboelastographic (TEG) technique. To determine if the severity of trauma, as assessed by the Animal Trauma Triage (ATT) score and clinicopathological markers of shock, is associated with a greater degree of platelet dysfunction and fibrinolysis.

Setting: University teaching hospital.

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The present study was undertaken to address the recent spate of pasteurellosis outbreaks among sea-farmed Atlantic salmon () in Norway and Scotland, coinciding with sporadic disease episodes in lumpfish () used for delousing purposes in salmon farms. Genome assemblies from 86 bacterial isolates cultured from diseased salmon or lumpfish confirmed them all as members of the family, with phylogenetic reconstruction dividing them into two distinct branches sharing <88% average nucleotide identity. These branches therefore constitute two separate species, namely and the as-yet invalidly named "".

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Background: Motor units (MUs) control the contraction of muscles and degenerate with age. It is therefore of interest to measure whole muscle and MU twitch profiles in aging skeletal muscle.

Purpose: Apply phase contrast MU MRI (PC-MUMRI) in a cohort of healthy adults to measure whole anterior compartment, individual muscles, and single MU twitch profiles in the calf.

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Perceptual video quality assessment (VQA) is an integral component of many streaming and video sharing platforms. Here we consider the problem of learning perceptually relevant video quality representations in a self-supervised manner. Distortion type identification and degradation level determination is employed as an auxiliary task to train a deep learning model containing a deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) that extracts spatial features, as well as a recurrent unit that captures temporal information.

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Stereotactic radiosurgery is an established focal treatment for brain metastases with high local control rates. An important side-effect of stereotactic radiosurgery is the development of radionecrosis. On conventional MR imaging, radionecrosis and tumour progression often have similar appearances, but have contrasting management approaches.

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The invention of scanning probe microscopy revolutionized the way electronic phenomena are visualized. Whereas present-day probes can access a variety of electronic properties at a single location in space, a scanning microscope that can directly probe the quantum mechanical existence of an electron at several locations would provide direct access to key quantum properties of electronic systems, so far unreachable. Here, we demonstrate a conceptually new type of scanning probe microscope-the quantum twisting microscope (QTM)-capable of performing local interference experiments at its tip.

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It has long been realized that even a perfectly clean electronic system harbors a Landauer-Sharvin resistance, inversely proportional to the number of its conduction channels. This resistance is usually associated with voltage drops on the system's contacts to an external circuit. Recent theories have shown that hydrodynamic effects can reduce this resistance, raising the question of the lower bound of resistance of hydrodynamic electrons.

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Electrical resistance usually originates from lattice imperfections. However, even a perfect lattice has a fundamental resistance limit, given by the Landauer conductance caused by a finite number of propagating electron modes. This resistance, shown by Sharvin to appear at the contacts of electronic devices, sets the ultimate conduction limit of non-interacting electrons.

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7-Methyl-2H-1,5-benzodioxepin-3(4H)-one (Calone®) is used in fragrances to impart a marine note. It is produced industrially at volumes requiring repeated dose and developmental/reproductive toxicology data (OECD TG 422) under European chemicals legislation (i.e.

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Objective: To assess in-vivo cross-sectional and 3D morphology of human motor units in hand, forearm and lower leg muscles using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Methods: Diffusion weighted MRI was used with in-scanner electrical stimulation in healthy controls to image motor units at a single slice in lower leg, forearm and hand muscles (n = 6) and multiple slices in the lower leg for 3D assessment (n = 7).

Results: Motor unit cross-sectional area (CSA) and maximum Feret diameter (FD) did not differ between the lower leg (CSA: 22.

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Case Summary: An 8.75-year-old male neutered Burmese cat was referred for treatment of pyothorax. The cat was responsive, cardiovascularly stable and tachypnoeic (40 breaths/min) on arrival.

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We consider the problem of obtaining image quality representations in a self-supervised manner. We use prediction of distortion type and degree as an auxiliary task to learn features from an unlabeled image dataset containing a mixture of synthetic and realistic distortions. We then train a deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) using a contrastive pairwise objective to solve the auxiliary problem.

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A growing body of evidence attests to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) during the pandemic. This study asked caregivers about their perceptions of how COVID-19 impacted them and the people they support. An online survey was conducted in 12 countries during August-September 2020 and sought information on demographics, support practices, information and training, experiences of COVID-19, social distancing, and wellbeing, as measured by the DASS12.

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Because of the increasing ease of video capture, many millions of consumers create and upload large volumes of User-Generated-Content (UGC) videos to social and streaming media sites over the Internet. UGC videos are commonly captured by naive users having limited skills and imperfect techniques, and tend to be afflicted by mixtures of highly diverse in-capture distortions. These UGC videos are then often uploaded for sharing onto cloud servers, where they are further compressed for storage and transmission.

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We consider the problem of conducting frame rate dependent video quality assessment (VQA) on videos of diverse frame rates, including high frame rate (HFR) videos. More generally, we study how perceptual quality is affected by frame rate, and how frame rate and compression combine to affect perceived quality. We devise an objective VQA model called Space-Time GeneRalized Entropic Difference (GREED) which analyzes the statistics of spatial and temporal band-pass video coefficients.

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Recent years have witnessed an explosion of user-generated content (UGC) videos shared and streamed over the Internet, thanks to the evolution of affordable and reliable consumer capture devices, and the tremendous popularity of social media platforms. Accordingly, there is a great need for accurate video quality assessment (VQA) models for UGC/consumer videos to monitor, control, and optimize this vast content. Blind quality prediction of in-the-wild videos is quite challenging, since the quality degradations of UGC videos are unpredictable, complicated, and often commingled.

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Localised signal voids in diffusion-weighted (DW) images of skeletal muscle have been postulated to occur as a result of muscle fibre contraction and relaxation. We investigated the contrast mechanism of these signal voids using a combination of modelling and experimental measurements by employing DW and phase contrast (PC) imaging sequences. The DW signal and PC signal were simulated for each time point of a theoretical muscle twitch.

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