556 research outputs found
Where's the Doughnut? LBV bubbles and Aspherical Fast Winds
In this paper we address the issue of the origin of LBV bipolar bubbles.
Previous studies have explained the shapes of LBV nebulae, such as Car,
by invoking the interaction of an isotropic fast wind with a previously
deposited, slow aspherical wind (a ``slow torus''). In this paper we focus on
the opposite scenario where an aspherical fast wind expands into a previously
deposited isotropic slow wind. Using high resolution hydrodynamic simulations,
which include the effects of radiative cooling, we have completed a series of
numerical experiments to test if and how aspherical fast winds effect wind
blown bubble morphologies. Our experiments explore a variety of models for the
latitudinal variations of fast wind flow parameters. The simulations
demonstrate that aspherical fast winds can produce strongly bipolar outflows.
In addition the properties of outflows recover some important aspects of LBV
bubbles which the previous "slow torus" models can not.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures, to appear the Astrophysical Journa
Novel pulsatile-release microparticles for single-injection vaccination
Many controlled release devices are designed to achieve near zero-order release kinetics, however for some applications, such as vaccination, non-continuous or pulsatile release is desired. Such pulsatile release systems may enable the creation of single-injection vaccines that eliminate the need for subsequent booster immunizations by spontaneously releasing antigen at time points that correspond to normal vaccination regimens. This would be especially important in the developing world where a lack of consistent access to healthcare contributes to approximately 1.5 million vaccine-preventable deaths each year.1 Here we present the fabrication and characterization of biodegradable core-shell microparticles that exhibit pulsatile release kinetics due to their unique structure. These particles are produced using a novel fabrication process that combines soft lithography, picoliter dispensing, optical alignment, and a gentle heat-based sintering step to generate microparticles with a biodegradable polymeric shell surrounding an antigen-filled core. By altering the composition (e.g. copolymer ratio or molecular weight) of the poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) shell, particles can be tuned to release discrete pulses of a model antigen at times ranging from four days to two months. This fabrication method is also compatible with sensitive biologics, such as the inactivated polio virus, which retains \u3e80% of its antigenicity after encapsulation. Further, because the shell of the particle is physically separated from the core, these particles can be filled with any aqueous vaccine solution without affecting release kinetics and be easily scaled via massively parallel fabrication. As a result, these particles have exciting potential as single-injection vaccines that fully mimic the antigen presentation profile of traditional bolus injections administered over the course of months or years.
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Dynamics of Highly Supercooled Liquids:Heterogeneity, Rheology, and Diffusion
Highly supercooled liquids with soft-core potentials are studied via
molecular dynamics simulations in two and three dimensions in quiescent and
sheared conditions.We may define bonds between neighboring particle pairs
unambiguously owing to the sharpness of the first peak of the pair correlation
functions. Upon structural rearrangements, they break collectively in the form
of clusters whose sizes grow with lowering the temperature . The bond life
time , which depends on and the shear rate \gdot, is on the order
of the usual structural or relaxation time in weak
shear \gdot \tau_{\alpha} \ll 1, while it decreases as 1/\gdot in strong
shear \gdot\tau_{\alpha} \gg 1 due to shear-induced cage breakage.
Accumulated broken bonds in a time interval () closely
resemble the critical fluctuations of Ising spin systems. For example, their
structure factor is well fitted to the Ornstein-Zernike form, which yields the
correlation length representing the maximum size of the clusters composed
of broken bonds. We also find a dynamical scaling relation, , valid for any and \gdot with in two dimensions and
in three dimensions. The viscosity is of order for any and
\gdot, so marked shear-thinning behavior emerges. The shear stress is close
to a limiting stress in a wide shear region. We also examine motion of tagged
particles in shear in three dimensions. The diffusion constant is found to be
of order with for any and \gdot, so
it is much enhanced in strong shear compared with its value at zero shear. This
indicates breakdown of the Einstein-Stokes relation in accord with experiments.
Some possible experiments are also proposed.Comment: 20pages (including figures
Educational Attainment Moderates the Association Between Hippocampal Volumes and Memory Performances in Healthy Older Adults
Objective: To examine whether educational attainment, as a proxy of cognitive reserve, moderated the association between hippocampal volumes and episodic verbal memory performances in healthy older adults.Methods: Data from 76 community dwelling older adults were included in the present study. Measures of hippocampal volumes (total, left, and right) were obtained using FreeSurfer software. Immediate and delayed verbal recall scores were derived from performances on the California Verbal Learning Test-Second Edition and the Wechsler Memory Scale- Third Edition. Educational attainment was defined by years of education. Linear regression analyses were performed using immediate and delayed recall as dependent variables and hippocampal volumes, years of education, and their interaction terms as independent variables. All analyses were controlled for age, sex, depression, and health status.Results: Total and left Hippocampal volumes had a positive main effect on delayed recall only. Additionally, the interaction between total, left, and right hippocampal volumes and education was a significant predictor for delayed recall performance but not for immediate recall performance. The positive association between hippocampal volumes and delayed recall was greatest in those with more years of education.Conclusion: Larger hippocampal volumes were associated with better delayed verbal recall and the effect on delayed recall was greatest in those with more years of education. Having higher levels of education, or cognitive reserve, may enable individuals to capitalize on greater structural integrity in the hippocampus to support delayed recall in old age. However, longitudinal research is needed to investigate the directionality of these associations
A Study of Time-Dependent CP-Violating Asymmetries and Flavor Oscillations in Neutral B Decays at the Upsilon(4S)
We present a measurement of time-dependent CP-violating asymmetries in
neutral B meson decays collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II
asymmetric-energy B Factory at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The data
sample consists of 29.7 recorded at the
resonance and 3.9 off-resonance. One of the neutral B mesons,
which are produced in pairs at the , is fully reconstructed in
the CP decay modes , , , () and , or in flavor-eigenstate
modes involving and (). The flavor of the other neutral B meson is tagged at the time of
its decay, mainly with the charge of identified leptons and kaons. The proper
time elapsed between the decays is determined by measuring the distance between
the decay vertices. A maximum-likelihood fit to this flavor eigenstate sample
finds . The value of the asymmetry amplitude is determined from
a simultaneous maximum-likelihood fit to the time-difference distribution of
the flavor-eigenstate sample and about 642 tagged decays in the
CP-eigenstate modes. We find , demonstrating that CP violation exists in the neutral B meson
system. (abridged)Comment: 58 pages, 35 figures, submitted to Physical Review
The Hetero-Hexameric Nature of a Chloroplast AAA+ FtsH Protease Contributes to Its Thermodynamic Stability
FtsH is an evolutionary conserved membrane-bound metalloprotease complex. While in most prokaryotes FtsH is encoded by a single gene, multiple FtsH genes are found in eukaryotes. Genetic and biochemical data suggest that the Arabidopsis chloroplast FtsH is a hetero-hexamer. This raises the question why photosynthetic organisms require a heteromeric complex, whereas in most bacteria a homomeric one is sufficient. To gain structural information of the possible complexes, the Arabidopsis FtsH2 (type B) and FtsH5 (type A) were modeled. An in silico study with mixed models of FtsH2/5 suggests that heteromeric hexamer structure with ratio of 4∶2 is more likely to exists. Specifically, calculation of the buried surface area at the interfaces between neighboring subunits revealed that a hetero-complex should be thermodynamically more stable than a homo-hexamer, due to the presence of additional hydrophobic and hydrophilic interactions. To biochemically assess this model, we generated Arabidopsis transgenic plants, expressing epitope-tagged FtsH2 and immuno-purified the protein. Mass-spectrometry analysis showed that FtsH2 is associated with FtsH1, FtsH5 and FtsH8. Interestingly, we found that ‘type B’ subunits (FtsH2 and FtsH8) were 2–3 fold more abundant than ‘type A’ (FtsH1 and FtsH5). The biochemical data corroborate the in silico model and suggest that the thylakoid FtsH hexamer is composed of two ‘type A’ and four ‘type B’ subunits
Two-stage hepatectomy (R0) with portal vein ligation—towards curing patients with extended bilobular colorectal liver metastases
Measurement of the branching fraction and CP content for the decay B(0) -> D(*+)D(*-)
This is the pre-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the links below. Copyright @ 2002 APS.We report a measurement of the branching fraction of the decay B0→D*+D*- and of the CP-odd component of its final state using the BABAR detector. With data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.4 fb-1 collected at the Υ(4S) resonance during 1999–2000, we have reconstructed 38 candidate signal events in the mode B0→D*+D*- with an estimated background of 6.2±0.5 events. From these events, we determine the branching fraction to be B(B0→D*+D*-)=[8.3±1.6(stat)±1.2(syst)]×10-4. The measured CP-odd fraction of the final state is 0.22±0.18(stat)±0.03(syst).This work is supported by DOE and NSF (USA), NSERC (Canada), IHEP (China), CEA and CNRS-IN2P3 (France), BMBF (Germany), INFN (Italy), NFR (Norway), MIST (Russia), and PPARC (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the A.P. Sloan Foundation, Research Corporation, and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Measurement of the B0-anti-B0-Oscillation Frequency with Inclusive Dilepton Events
The - oscillation frequency has been measured with a sample of
23 million \B\bar B pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II
asymmetric B Factory at SLAC. In this sample, we select events in which both B
mesons decay semileptonically and use the charge of the leptons to identify the
flavor of each B meson. A simultaneous fit to the decay time difference
distributions for opposite- and same-sign dilepton events gives ps.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review Letter
Profiling Critical Cancer Gene Mutations in Clinical Tumor Samples
Background: Detection of critical cancer gene mutations in clinical tumor specimens may predict patient outcomes and inform treatment options; however, high-throughput mutation profiling remains underdeveloped as a diagnostic approach. We report the implementation of a genotyping and validation algorithm that enables robust tumor mutation profiling in the clinical setting. Methodology: We developed and implemented an optimized mutation profiling platform (“OncoMap”) to interrogate ∼400 mutations in 33 known oncogenes and tumor suppressors, many of which are known to predict response or resistance to targeted therapies. The performance of OncoMap was analyzed using DNA derived from both frozen and FFPE clinical material in a diverse set of cancer types. A subsequent in-depth analysis was conducted on histologically and clinically annotated pediatric gliomas. The sensitivity and specificity of OncoMap were 93.8% and 100% in fresh frozen tissue; and 89.3% and 99.4% in FFPE-derived DNA. We detected known mutations at the expected frequencies in common cancers, as well as novel mutations in adult and pediatric cancers that are likely to predict heightened response or resistance to existing or developmental cancer therapies. OncoMap profiles also support a new molecular stratification of pediatric low-grade gliomas based on BRAF mutations that may have immediate clinical impact. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate the clinical feasibility of high-throughput mutation profiling to query a large panel of “actionable” cancer gene mutations. In the future, this type of approach may be incorporated into both cancer epidemiologic studies and clinical decision making to specify the use of many targeted anticancer agents
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