1,448 research outputs found
EVOLVING THE ENZYME THROUGH LOOP ENGINEERING
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Identifying a new particle with jet substructures
We investigate a potential of measuring properties of a heavy resonance X,
exploiting jet substructure techniques. Motivated by heavy higgs boson
searches, we focus on the decays of X into a pair of (massive) electroweak
gauge bosons. More specifically, we consider a hadronic Z boson, which makes it
possible to determine properties of X at an earlier stage. For of O(1)
TeV, two quarks from a Z boson would be captured as a "merged jet" in a
significant fraction of events. The use of the merged jet enables us to
consider a Z-induced jet as a reconstructed object without any combinatorial
ambiguity. We apply a conventional jet substructure method to extract
four-momenta of subjets from a merged jet. We find that jet substructure
procedures may enhance features in some kinematic observables formed with
subjets. Subjet momenta are fed into the matrix element associated with a given
hypothesis on the nature of X, which is further processed to construct a matrix
element method (MEM)-based observable. For both moderately and highly boosted Z
bosons, we demonstrate that the MEM with current jet substructure techniques
can be a very powerful discriminator in identifying the physics nature of X. We
also discuss effects from choosing different jet sizes for merged jets and
jet-grooming parameters upon the MEM analyses.Comment: 36 pages, 11 figures, published in JHE
On the sandstorms and associated airborne dustfall episodes observed at Cheongwon in Korea in 2005
Sandstorms in the desert and loess regions of north-northwestern China and Mongolia, as well as the associated dustfall episodes in the Korean Peninsula, were monitored between January and December 2005. Composite color images were made on the basis of data received directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite advanced very high resolution radiometer, and the distribution and transport of dust clouds were analyzed. The ground concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 and visibility during dustfall episodes (where the PM10 concentration exceeds 190 μg m−3 for at least 2 h) were also analyzed at Cheongwon, in central South Korea, which lies in the leeward direction from the origin of sandstorms. Fewer strong sandstorms occurred in the places of origin in 2005, mainly because of the snow cover with moderate high and low pressure systems in the place of dust origin. The weather patterns explain why there were fewer dustfall episodes in Korea in 2005 than in the period between 1997 and 2004. A total of seven dustfall episodes were monitored in Korea in 2005 and they covered a period of 11 days. In the summer of 2005, sandstorms occurred less frequently in the source region due to high humidity and weaker winds; as a result, there were no dustfall episodes in Korea. When the sandstorms at the source headed directly to Korea without passing through any large cities or industrial areas of China, the PM2.5 concentrations were up to 20% of the PM10 concentrations. However, when the sandstorms headed to Korea via the industrial areas of eastern China, where they pick up anthropogenic air pollutants, the PM2.5 concentrations were at least 25% of the PM10 concentrations. In five of the cases that were observed and analyzed in 2005, the PM10 concentrations of the sand dust that originated in the deserts were 190 μg m−3 or less, which is below the level of a dustfall episode
Structural synthetic biology strategy for the design of a new metabolic pathway
To date, notable successes have been made in producing valuable chemicals and fuels from renewable resources by simply modifying and optimizing the metabolic pathways in microorganisms. However, to design a more efficient and desirable pathway with high efficiency from ubiquitously existing multi-branched and multi-level regulated ones, a new approach is needed other than conventional systematic analysis of every bottlenecks embedded in the biosynthetic pathways. Here, we present a strategy combining rational enzyme design and synthetic biology to construct a new metabolic pathway which evades from the highly regulated nature. As a proof-of-concept, we implemented our approach to the design of a new L-methionine biosynthetic pathway. To this end, structure of the MetZ enzyme, which is a key to the construction of new biosynthetic pathway in Corynebacterium glutamicum, was modelled, and its substrate specificity was rationally altered toward a substrate required for redirecting the metabolic flux in the pathway. Furthermore, we used mutational approach to relieve feedback inhibition of other enzymes which regulate the metabolic flux in the methionine biosynthetic pathway. As a result, the L-methionine level reached a gram scale in flask culture by recombinant Corynebacterium glutamicum with the methionine biosynthetic pathway. We demonstrate that the “structural synthetic biology” strategy can boost our ability to generate a more efficient metabolic pathway for the production of valuable chemicals
EFFECTS OF MO, CR, AND V ADDITIONS ON TENSILE AND CHARPY IMPACT PROPERTIES OF API X80 PIPELINE STEELS
In this study, four API X80 pipeline steels were fabricated by varying Mo, Cr, and V additions, and their microstructures and crystallographic orientations were analyzed to investigate the effects of their alloying compositions on tensile properties and Charpy impact properties. Because additions of Mo and V promoted the formation of fine acicular ferrite (AF) and granular bainite (GB) while prohibiting the formation of coarse GB, they increased the strength and upper-shelf energy (USE) and decreased the energy transition temperature (ETT). The addition of Cr promoted the formation of coarse GB and hard secondary phases, thereby leading to an increased effective grain size, ETT, and strength, and a decreased USE. The addition of V resulted in a higher strength, a higher USE, a smaller effective grain size, and a lower ETT, because it promoted the formation of fine and homogeneous of AF and GB. The steel that contains 0.3 wt pct Mo and 0.06 wt pct V without Cr had the highest USE and the lowest ETT, because its microstructure was composed of fine AF and GB while its maintained excellent tensile properties.X1126sciescopu
The 750 GeV Diphoton Excess May Not Imply a 750 GeV Resonance
We discuss non-standard interpretations of the 750 GeV diphoton excess
recently reported by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations which do not involve a
new, relatively broad, resonance with a mass near 750 GeV. Instead, we consider
the sequential cascade decay of a much heavier, possibly quite narrow,
resonance into two photons along with one or more invisible particles. The
resulting diphoton invariant mass signal is generically rather broad, as
suggested by the data. We examine three specific event topologies - the antler,
the sandwich, and the 2-step cascade decay, and show that they all can provide
a good fit to the observed published data. In each case, we delineate the
preferred mass parameter space selected by the best fit. In spite of the
presence of invisible particles in the final state, the measured missing
transverse energy is moderate, due to its anti- correlation with the diphoton
invariant mass. We comment on the future prospects of discriminating with
higher statistics between our scenarios, as well as from more conventional
interpretations.Comment: Discussion about the ATLAS Moriond EW2016 added. Matched to PRL
accepted versio
Optimization of a Heterogeneous Reaction System for the Production of Optically Active D-Amino Acids Using Thermostable D-Hydantoinase
Abstract: A thermostable D-hydantoinase from Bacillus stearothermophilus SD-1 was previously mass-produced by batch cultivation of the recombinant E. coli harboring the gene encoding the enzyme . In this work, we attempted to optimize the process for the production of N-carbamoyl-D-p-hydroxyphenylglycine, which is readily hydrolyzed to D-p-hydroxyphenylglycine under acidic conditions, from 5-(4-hydroxyphenyl)hydantoin using the mass-produced D-hydantoinase. In an effort to overcome the low solubility of the substrate, enzyme reaction was carried out in a heterogeneous system consisting of a high substrate concentration up to 300 g/L. In this reaction system, most of substrate is present in suspended particles. Optimal temperature and pH were determined to be 45°C and 8.5, respectively, by taking into account the reaction rate and conversion yield. When the free enzyme was employed as a biocatalyst, enzyme loading higher than 300 unit/g-substrate was required to achieve maximum conversion. Use of whole cell enzyme resulted in maximum conversion even at lower enzyme loadings than the free enzyme, showing 96% conversion yield at 300 g/L substrate. The heterogeneous reaction system used in this work might be applied to the enzymatic production of other valuable compounds from a rarely water-soluble substrate
Highly efficient active optical interconnect incorporating a partially chlorinated ribbon POF in conjunction with a visible VCSEL
A low-loss 4-ch active optical interconnect (AOI) enabling passive alignment was proposed and built resorting to a transmitter (Tx) incorporating a red 680-nm VCSEL, which is linked to a receiver (Rx) module via a partially chlorinated ribbon POF. The POF was observed to exhibit an extremely low loss of similar to 0.24 dB/m at lambda = 680 nm, in comparison to similar to 1.29 dB/m at lambda = 850 nm, and a large numerical aperture of similar to 0.42. Both the Tx and Rx, which taps into a beam router based on collimated beam optics involving a pair of spherical lenses, were meant to be substantially alignment tolerant and compact. The achieved tolerance for the constructed modules was beyond 40 m in terms of the positioning of VCSEL and photodetector. The proposed AOI was completed by linking the Tx with the Rx via a 3-m long ribbon POF, incurring a transmission loss of as small as 3.2 dB. The AOI was practically assessed in terms of a high-speed data transmission over a wide range of temperatures and then exploited to convey full HD video signals. (C) 2014 Optical Society of Americ
OPTIMASS: A Package for the Minimization of Kinematic Mass Functions with Constraints
Reconstructed mass variables, such as , , , and
, play an essential role in searches for new physics at hadron
colliders. The calculation of these variables generally involves constrained
minimization in a large parameter space, which is numerically challenging. We
provide a C++ code, OPTIMASS, which interfaces with the MINUIT library to
perform this constrained minimization using the Augmented Lagrangian Method.
The code can be applied to arbitrarily general event topologies and thus allows
the user to significantly extend the existing set of kinematic variables. We
describe this code and its physics motivation, and demonstrate its use in the
analysis of the fully leptonic decay of pair-produced top quarks using the
variables.Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures, (1) minor revision in section 3, (2) figure
added in section 4.3, (3) reference added and (4) matched with published
versio
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EFFECT OF LOW DOSE RADIATION ON DIFFERENTIATION OF BONE MARROW CELLS INTO DENDRITIC CELLS
Low dose radiation has been shown to be beneficial to living organisms using several biological systems, including immune and hematopoietic systems. Chronic low dose radiation was shown to stimulate immune systems, resulting in controlling the proliferation of cancer cells, maintain immune balance and induce hematopoietic hormesis. Since dendritic cells are differentiated from bone marrow cells and are key players in maintaining the balance between immune activation and tolerance, it may be important to further characterize whether low dose radiation can influence the capacity of bone marrow cells to differentiate into dendritic cells. We have shown that bone marrow cells from low dose- irradiated (γ-radiation, 0.2Gy, 15.44mGy/h) mice can differentiate into dendritic cells that have several different characteristics, such as expression of surface molecules, cytokine secretion and antigen uptake capacity, when compared to dentritic cells differentiated from the control bone marrow cells. These differences observed in the low dose radiation group can be beneficial to living organisms either by activation of immune responses to foreign antigens or tumors, or maintenance of self-tolerance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report showing that total-body low dose radiation can modulate the capacity of bone marrow cells to differentiate into dendritic cells
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