Comment on "Giant Plasticity of a Quantum Crystal"

In their Letter, Haziot et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110 (2013) 035301] report a novel phenomenon of giant plasticity for hcp Helium-4 quantum crystals. They assert that Helium-4 exhibits mechanical properties not found in classical plasticity theory. Specifically, they examine high-quality crystals as a function of temperature and applied strain, where the shear modulus reaches a plateau and dissipation becomes close to zero; both quantities are reported to be independent of stress and strain, implying a reversible dissipation process and quantum tunneling. In this Comment, we show that these signatures can be explained with a classical model of thermally activated dislocation glide without the need to invoke quantum tunneling or dissipationless motion. Recently, we proposed a dislocation glide model in solid Helium-4 containing the dissipation contribution in the presence of other dislocations with qualitatively similar behavior [Zhou et al., Philos. Mag. Lett. 92 (2012) 608].Comment: 1 page, 1 figure, comment; minor revision

Sub-Pixel Response Measurement of Near-Infrared Sensors

Wide-field survey instruments are used to efficiently observe large regions of the sky. To achieve the necessary field of view, and to provide a higher signal-to-noise ratio for faint sources, many modern instruments are undersampled. However, precision photometry with undersampled imagers requires a detailed understanding of the sensitivity variations on a scale much smaller than a pixel. To address this, a near-infrared spot projection system has been developed to precisely characterize near-infrared focal plane arrays and to study the effect of sub-pixel non uniformity on precision photometry. Measurements of large format near-infrared detectors demonstrate the power of this system for understanding sub-pixel response.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figures, submitted to PAS

In vivo brain connectivity: optimization of manganese enhanced MRI for neuronal tract tracing

One of the main problems in systems biology is to obtain information on signal processing between interconnected groups of neurons in highly distributed networks. The recently introduced technique of manganese (Mn2+) enhanced MRI (MEMRI) to study neuronal connectivity in vivo opens the possibility to these studies. However, several drawbacks exist that challenge its applicability. High Mn2+ concentrations produce cytotoxic effects that can perturb the circuits under study. In the other hand, the MR signal is proportional to the Mn2+ concentration in tissue and thus, significant amounts of Mn2+ are required to produce detectable contrast and reliable connectivity maps. Here we attempt to optimize the MEMRI technique by preventing toxicity and improving the quality and extension of the obtained connectivity maps. The somatosensory cortex of male SD rats was stereotaxically injected with different Mn2+-containing solutions. Total amount of injected Mn2+ ranged between 1 and 16 nmol and the injected volumes between 10 and 80 nL. Osmolarity and pH effects were investigated injecting pH buffered solutions of Mn2+ (pH 7.3 in Tris-HCl buffer vs. 5.5 in H2O) at different concentration (0.05, 0.1 and 0.8 M MnCl2). Same amounts of Mn2+ (8nmol) delivered to the tissue at different infusion rates were also compared. Following the injection, T1-weighted MR imaging (250 mm isotropic resolution) was performed in a 7T scanner at different time points. Fifteen days after the injection animals were sacrificed and brains processed for histology. Nissl staining as well as GFAP and NeuN immunohistochemistry (selective staining for astrocytes and neurons, respectively) were performed in the brain sections to examine cellular toxicity. All injections produced connectivity maps consistent with the known anterograde projections of SI cortex based on classical neuronal tract-tracing techniques. Our results show that pH buffered solution improve the effectiveness of MEMRI, increasing T1 contrast in the projection sites. In addition, injections of pH buffered and isotonic solutions of 50 and 100 mM MnCl2 yielded more extensive connectivity maps, in particular, ipsiand contra-lateral corticocortical connections were evident in all animal injected with those solutions but not with the more usual MEMRI protocol (0.8M MnCl2 in H2O). Hypertonic and non-buffered solutions containing 8nmol Mn2+ resulted in neuronal death and astrogliosis in extensive areas around the injection point. In sharp contrast, no neuronal toxicity was observed with injections containing up to 8nmol of Mn2+ in isotonic solutions of up to 100 mM MnCl2 and pH 7.3. Slow infusion rates demonstrated also to be advantageous and permitted application of larger amounts of Mn2+ without toxic effects, resulting in better T1 contrast in the low density projection fields. Any sign of toxicity was observed in any condition in the projection fields. We conclude that refined protocols for MEMRI improve the quality and extension of connectivity maps and preserves tissue viability, assuring the application of this technique in longitudinal experiments

Genetic Markers of Obesity Risk: Stronger Associations with Body Composition in Overweight Compared to Normal-Weight Children

Genetic factors are important determinants of overweight. We examined whether there are differential effect sizes depending on children's body composition. We analysed data of n = 4,837 children recorded in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), applying quantile regression with sex- and age-specific standard deviation scores (SDS) of body mass index (BMI) or with body fat mass index and fat-free mass index at 9 years as outcome variables and an "obesity-risk-allele score" based on eight genetic variants known to be associated with childhood BMI as the explanatory variable. The quantile regression coefficients increased with increasing child's BMI-SDS and fat mass index percentiles, indicating larger effects of the genetic factors at higher percentiles. While the associations with BMI-SDS were of similar size in medium and high BMI quantiles (40th percentile and above), effect sizes with fat mass index increased over the whole fat mass index distribution. For example, the fat mass index of a normal-weight (50th percentile) child was increased by 0.13 kg/m(2) (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.09, 0.16) per additional allele, compared to 0.24 kg/m(2) per allele (95% CI: 0.15, 0.32) in children at the 90th percentile. The genetic associations with fat-free mass index were weaker and the quantile regression effects less pronounced than those on fat mass index. Genetic risk factors for childhood overweight appear to have greater effects on fatter children. Interaction of known genetic factors with environmental or unknown genetic factors might provide a potential explanation of these findings

Radiation damage tolerant nanomaterials

Designing a material from the atomic level to achieve a tailored response in extreme conditions is a grand challenge in materials research. Nanostructured metals and composites provide a path to this goal because they contain interfaces that attract, absorb and annihilate point and line defects. These interfaces recover and control defects produced in materials subjected to extremes of displacement damage, impurity implantation, stress and temperature. Controlling radiation-induced-defects via interfaces is shown to be the key factor in reducing the damage and imparting stability in certain nanomaterials under conditions where bulk materials exhibit void swelling and/or embrittlement. We review the recovery of radiation-induced point defects at free surfaces and grain boundaries and stabilization of helium bubbles at interphase boundaries and present an approach for processing bulk nanocomposites containing interfaces that are stable under irradiation.United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Award 2008LANL1026

All Politics is Local: The Renminbi's Prospects as a Future Global Currency

. In this article we describe methods for improving the RWTH German speech recognizer used within the VERBMOBIL project. In particular, we present acceleration methods for the search based on both within-word and across-word phoneme models. We also study incremental methods to reduce the response time of the online speech recognizer. Finally, we present experimental off-line results for the three VERBMOBIL scenarios. We report on word error rates and real-time factors for both speaker independent and speaker dependent recognition. 1 Introduction The goal of the VERBMOBIL project is to develop a speech-to-speech translation system that performs close to real-time. In this system, speech recognition is followed by subsequent VERBMOBIL modules (like syntactic analysis and translation) which depend on the recognition result. Therefore, in this application it is particularly important to keep the recognition time as short as possible. There are VERBMOBIL modules which are capable to work ..

Fracture model with variable range of interaction

We introduce a fiber bundle model where the interaction among fibers is modeled by an adjustable stress-transfer function which can interpolate between the two limiting cases of load redistribution, the global and the local load sharing schemes. By varying the range of interaction several features of the model are numerically studied and a crossover from mean field to short range behavior is obtained. The properties of the two regimes and the emergence of the crossover in between are explored by numerically studying the dependence of the ultimate strength of the material on the system size, the distribution of avalanches of breakings, and of the cluster sizes of broken fibers. Finally, we analyze the moments of the cluster size distributions to accurately determine the value at which the crossover is observed.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures. Two columns revtex format. Final version to be published in Phys. Rev.

Double-flow focused liquid injector for efficient serial femtosecond crystallography

Serial femtosecond crystallography requires reliable and efficient delivery of fresh crystals across the beam of an X-ray free-electron laser over the course of an experiment. We introduce a double-flow focusing nozzle to meet this challenge, with significantly reduced sample consumption, while improving jet stability over previous generations of nozzles. We demonstrate its use to determine the first room-temperature structure of RNA polymerase II at high resolution, revealing new structural details. Moreover, the double flow- focusing nozzles were successfully tested with three other protein samples and the first room temperature structure of an extradiol ring-cleaving dioxygenase was solved by utilizing the improved operation and characteristics of these devices