1,958 research outputs found
Reading the Number of Extra Dimensions in the Spectrum of Hawking Radiation
After a brief review of the production and decay of Schwarzschild-like
(4+n)-dimensional black holes in the framework of theories with Large Extra
Dimensions, we proceed to derive the greybody factors and emission rates for
scalars, fermions and gauge bosons on the brane. We present and discuss
analytic and numerical methods for obtaining the above results, and demonstrate
that both the amount and type of Hawking radiation emitted by the black hole
can help us to determine the number of spacelike dimensions that exist in
nature.Comment: 8 pages, Latex file, 1 figure, to appear in the proceedings of the
String Phenomenology 2003 Conference, Durham, UK, 29th July-4th August, 200
Kinetics of the reduction of wΓΌstite by hydrogen and carbon monoxide for the chemical looping production of hydrogen
Hydrogen of very high purity can be produced via the steam-iron process, in which steam oxidises metallic Fe in 3/4Fe + H2Oβ1/4Fe3O4 + H2. It is then advantageous to oxidise Fe3O4 in air to Fe2O3, an oxygen-carrier. This higher oxide of Fe is then reduced to regenerate metallic iron by reacting with synthesis gas, producing metallic Fe and possibly some wΓΌstite (FexO, 0<x<1). In this three-stage process, the reduction of FexO to Fe is the slowest reaction. This paper is concerned with the kinetics of the reduction of wΓΌstite (FexO) by reaction with CO, and, or H2. Starting with pure (99 wt%) wΓΌstite, the intrinsic kinetics of its reduction to metallic iron were measured in fluidised beds at different temperatures. The reaction was found to have 3 distinct stages, (i) the removal of lattice oxygen in wΓΌstite, (ii) rate increasing with conversion of solid and (iii) rate decreasing with conversion of solid. A random pore model was used to simulate the latter stages of the reduction of wΓΌstite by either H2 or CO or a mixture of the two. It was found that the intrinsic rate of reduction in H2 is substantially faster than with CO, whereas the resistances to diffusion of H2 and CO through the product layer of Fe are comparable; these factors account for differences in the overall rates observed with these gases.This is the final published version. It is also available from the publisher at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000925091400428X
Creating a virtual office : ten case studies for CPA firms
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_guides/1573/thumbnail.jp
Capturing Nucleation at 4D Atomic Resolution
Nucleation plays a critical role in many physical and biological phenomena
ranging from crystallization, melting and evaporation to the formation of
clouds and the initiation of neurodegenerative diseases. However, nucleation is
a challenging process to study in experiments especially in the early stage
when several atoms/molecules start to form a new phase from its parent phase.
Here, we advance atomic electron tomography to study early stage nucleation at
4D atomic resolution. Using FePt nanoparticles as a model system, we reveal
that early stage nuclei are irregularly shaped, each has a core of one to few
atoms with the maximum order parameter, and the order parameter gradient points
from the core to the boundary of the nucleus. We capture the structure and
dynamics of the same nuclei undergoing growth, fluctuation, dissolution,
merging and/or division, which are regulated by the order parameter
distribution and its gradient. These experimental observations differ from
classical nucleation theory (CNT) and to explain them we propose the order
parameter gradient (OPG) model. We show the OPG model generalizes CNT and
energetically favours diffuse interfaces for small nuclei and sharp interfaces
for large nuclei. We further corroborate this model using molecular dynamics
simulations of heterogeneous and homogeneous nucleation in liquid-solid phase
transitions of Pt. We anticipate that the OPG model is applicable to different
nucleation processes and our experimental method opens the door to study the
structure and dynamics of materials with 4D atomic resolution.Comment: 42 pages, 5 figures, 12 supplementary figures and one supplementary
tabl
The Role of Dopamine in Drosophila Larval Classical Olfactory Conditioning
Learning and memory is not an attribute of higher animals. Even Drosophila larvae are able to form and recall an association of a given odor with an aversive or appetitive gustatory reinforcer. As the Drosophila larva has turned into a particularly simple model for studying odor processing, a detailed neuronal and functional map of the olfactory pathway is available up to the third order neurons in the mushroom bodies. At this point, a convergence of olfactory processing and gustatory reinforcement is suggested to underlie associative memory formation. The dopaminergic system was shown to be involved in mammalian and insect olfactory conditioning. To analyze the anatomy and function of the larval dopaminergic system, we first characterize dopaminergic neurons immunohistochemically up to the single cell level and subsequent test for the effects of distortions in the dopamine system upon aversive (odor-salt) as well as appetitive (odor-sugar) associative learning. Single cell analysis suggests that dopaminergic neurons do not directly connect gustatory input in the larval suboesophageal ganglion to olfactory information in the mushroom bodies. However, a number of dopaminergic neurons innervate different regions of the brain, including protocerebra, mushroom bodies and suboesophageal ganglion. We found that dopamine receptors are highly enriched in the mushroom bodies and that aversive and appetitive olfactory learning is strongly impaired in dopamine receptor mutants. Genetically interfering with dopaminergic signaling supports this finding, although our data do not exclude on naΓ―ve odor and sugar preferences of the larvae. Our data suggest that dopaminergic neurons provide input to different brain regions including protocerebra, suboesophageal ganglion and mushroom bodies by more than one route. We therefore propose that different types of dopaminergic neurons might be involved in different types of signaling necessary for aversive and appetitive olfactory memory formation respectively, or for the retrieval of these memory traces. Future studies of the dopaminergic system need to take into account such cellular dissociations in function in order to be meaningful
PAR1- and PAR2-induced innate immune markers are negatively regulated by PI3K/Akt signaling pathway in oral keratinocytes
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Protease-Activated Receptors (PARs), members of G-protein-coupled receptors, are activated by proteolytic activity of various proteases. Activation of PAR1 and PAR2 triggers innate immune responses in human oral keratinocytes (HOKs), but the signaling pathways downstream of PAR activation in HOKs have not been clearly defined. In this study, we aimed to determine if PAR1- and PAR2-mediated signaling differs in the induction of innate immune markers CXCL3, CXCL5 and CCL20 via ERK, p38 and PI3K/Akt.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our data show the induction of innate immunity by PAR1 requires both p38 and ERK MAP kinases, while PAR2 prominently signals via p38. However, inhibition of PI3K enhances expression of innate immune markers predominantly via suppressing p38 phosphorylation signaled by PAR activation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data indicate that proteases mediating PAR1 and PAR2 activation differentially signal via MAP kinase cascades. In addition, the production of chemokines induced by PAR1 and PAR2 is suppressed by PI3K/Akt, thus keeping the innate immune responses of HOK in balance. The results of our study provide a novel insight into signaling pathways involved in PAR activation.</p
First measurement of anti-k jet spectra and jet substructure using the archived ALEPH data at 91.2 GeV
We present the first anti-k jet spectrum and substructure measurements
using the archived ALEPH data taken in 1994 at a center of mass energy
of GeV. Jets are reconstructed with the anti-k
algorithm with a resolution parameter of 0.4. It is the cleanest test of jets
and QCD without the complication of hadronic initial states. The fixed
center-of-mass energy also allows the first direct test of pQCD calculation. We
present both the inclusive jet energy spectrum and the leading dijet energy
spectra, together with a number of substructure observables. They are compared
to predictions from PYTHIA6, PYTHIA8, Sherpa, HERWIG, VINCIA, and PYQUEN. None
of the models fully reproduce the data. The data are also compared to two
perturbative QCD calculations at NLO and with NLL'+R resummation. The results
can also serve as reference measurements to compare to results from hadronic
colliders. Future directions, including testing jet clustering algorithms
designed for future electron-ion collider experiments, will also be discussed
- β¦