We developed a three-center phenomenological model,able to explain qualitatively the recently obtained experimental results concerning the quasimolecular stage of a light-particle accompanied fission process. It was derived from the liquid drop model under the assumption that the aligned configuration, with the emitted particle between the light and heavy fragment, is reached by increasing continuously the separation distance, while the radii of the heavy fragment and of the light particle are kept constant. In such a way,a new minimum of a short-lived molecular state appears in the deformation energy at a separation distance very close to the touching point. This minimum allows the existence of a short-lived quasi-molecular state, decaying into the three final fragments.The influence of the shell effects is discussed. The half-lives of some quasimolecular states which could be formed in the $^{10}$Be and $^{12}$C accompanied fission of $^{252}$Cf are roughly estimated to be the order of 1 ns, and 1 ms, respectively.
Background: Alzheimer's disease is a common debilitating dementia with known heritability, for which 20 late onset susceptibility loci have been identified, but more remain to be discovered. This study sought to identify new susceptibility genes, using an alternative gene-wide analytical approach which tests for patterns of association within genes, in the powerful genome-wide association dataset of the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project Consortium, comprising over 7 m genotypes from 25,580 Alzheimer's cases and 48,466 controls.
Principal findings: In addition to earlier reported genes, we detected genome-wide significant loci on chromosomes 8 (TP53INP1, p = 1.4×10−6) and 14 (IGHV1-67 p = 7.9×10−8) which indexed novel susceptibility loci.
Significance: The additional genes identified in this study, have an array of functions previously implicated in Alzheimer's disease, including aspects of energy metabolism, protein degradation and the immune system and add further weight to these pathways as potential therapeutic targets in Alzheimer's disease.