633 research outputs found
A dedicated haem lyase is required for the maturation of a novel bacterial cytochrome c with unconventional covalent haem binding
In bacterial c-type cytochromes, the haem cofactor is covalently attached via two cysteine residues organized in a haem c-binding motif. Here, a novel octa-haem c protein, MccA, is described that contains only seven conventional haem c-binding motifs (CXXCH), in addition to several single cysteine residues and a conserved CH signature. Mass spectrometric analysis of purified MccA from Wolinella succinogenes suggests that two of the single cysteine residues are actually part of an unprecedented CX15CH sequence involved in haem c binding. Spectroscopic characterization of MccA identified an unusual high-potential haem c with a red-shifted absorption maximum, not unlike that of certain eukaryotic cytochromes c that exceptionally bind haem via only one thioether bridge. A haem lyase gene was found to be specifically required for the maturation of MccA in W. succinogenes. Equivalent haem lyase-encoding genes belonging to either the bacterial cytochrome c biogenesis system I or II are present in the vicinity of every known mccA gene suggesting a dedicated cytochrome c maturation pathway. The results necessitate reconsideration of computer-based prediction of putative haem c-binding motifs in bacterial proteomes
Neotectonics of the Caucasus and Kura valley, Azerbaijan
Analysis of remote sensing, gravity, earthquake, horizontal and vertical motion data in the
broader Azerbaijan region, located between the colliding Arabia and Eurasian Platform, indicates
the overall dextral transpression. The region undergoes deformation by NW-SE striking
transpressional strike-slip faults, pure strike-slip faults and thrusts. It is also deformed by N-S to
NE-SW striking sinistral strike-slip faults. The study area is located to the NE of the main
indentation point. The direction of indentation is roughly parallel to the NW-SE trending
symmetry axis of the fanning horizontal motion vectors, to the NNW-SSE trending axis of the
fanning 1-stress trajectories and to the fastest slowdown direction of horizontal motions in front
of the advancing Arabia, which are all roughly parallel to the Arabian motion vector. The broader
Azerbaijan region is situated in the eastern side of these fan-shaped patterns. It is characterized by
1 trends progressively changing from NNW-SSE to NE-SW and by the seismoactive zone
thickness increasing SE-ward underneath the Kura Valley from 40 to almost 70 km. Its eastern
portion, typical by its small-block mosaic structure, contains some unusual local stress regimes. It
is argued that they are related to the addition of the regional tectonic stress, highly perturbed
along numerous local strike-slip faults, to local stresses generated by interactions of local rotating
blocks. This eastern portion is most prone to block rotations, being most distant from the main
indentation point and being affected by the least transpressive strike-slip faulting
Scattering of particles by neutron stars: Time-evolutions for axial perturbations
The excitation of the axial quasi-normal modes of a relativistic star by
scattered particles is studied by evolving the time dependent perturbation
equations. This work is the first step towards the understanding of more
complicated perturbative processes, like the capture or the scattering of
particles by rotating stars. In addition, it may serve as a test for the
results of the full nonlinear evolution of binary systems.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, Phys. Rev. D in pres
Cosmic Rays From Cosmic Strings
It has been speculated that cosmic string networks could produce ultra-high
energy cosmic rays as a by-product of their evolution. By making use of recent
work on the evolution of such networks, it will be shown that the flux of
cosmic rays from cosmologically useful, that is GUT scale strings, is too small
to be used as a test for strings with any foreseeable technology.Comment: 11, Imperial/TP/93-94/2
Montecarlo simulation of the role of defects as the melting mechanism
We study in this paper the melting transition of a crystal of fcc structure
with the Lennard-Jones potential, by using isobaric-isothermal Monte Carlo
simulations.
Local and collective updates are sequentially used to optimize the
convergence. We show the important role played by defects in the melting
mechanism in favor of modern melting theories.Comment: 6 page, 10 figures included. Corrected version to appear in Phys.
Rev.
Complementarity of the Maldacena and Karch-Randall Pictures
We perform a one-loop test of the holographic interpretation of the
Karch-Randall model, whereby a massive graviton appears on an AdS_4 brane in an
AdS_5 bulk. Within the AdS/CFT framework, we examine the quantum corrections to
the graviton propagator on the brane, and demonstrate that they induce a
graviton mass in exact agreement with the Karch-Randall result. Interestingly
enough, at one loop order, the spin 0, spin 1/2 and spin 1 loops contribute to
the dynamically generated (mass)^2 in the same 1: 3: 12 ratio as enters the
Weyl anomaly and the 1/r^3 corrections to the Newtonian gravitational
potential.Comment: 20 pages, Revtex 3, Discussion on the absence of a scalar ghost
clarified; Additional details on the computation give
Quantifying the interdisciplinarity of scientific journals and fields
There is an overall perception of increased interdisciplinarity in science,
but this is difficult to confirm quantitatively owing to the lack of adequate
methods to evaluate subjective phenomena. This is no different from the
difficulties in establishing quantitative relationships in human and social
sciences. In this paper we quantified the interdisciplinarity of scientific
journals and science fields by using an entropy measurement based on the
diversity of the subject categories of journals citing a specific journal. The
methodology consisted in building citation networks using the Journal Citation
Reports database, in which the nodes were journals and edges were established
based on citations among journals. The overall network for the 11-year period
(1999-2009) studied was small-world and scale free with regard to the
in-strength. Upon visualizing the network topology an overall structure of the
various science fields could be inferred, especially their interconnections. We
confirmed quantitatively that science fields are becoming increasingly
interdisciplinary, with the degree of interdisplinarity (i.e. entropy)
correlating strongly with the in-strength of journals and with the impact
factor.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure
The fate of spinons in spontaneously dimerised spin-1/2 ladders
We study a weakly coupled, frustrated two-leg spin-1/2 Heisenberg ladder. For
vanishing coupling between the chains, elementary excitations are deconfined,
gapless spin-1/2 objects called spinons. We investigate the fate of spinons for
the case of a weak interchain interaction. We show that despite a drastic
change in ground state, which becomes spontaneously dimerised, spinons survive
as elementary excitations but acquire a spectral gap. We furthermore determine
the exact dynamical structure factor for several values of momentum transfer.Comment: 8 pages of revtex, 7 figures; discussion of physical picture for
ground state and excitations in the "twistless" ladder expanded, version to
appear in Phys Rev
Noise reduction in 3D noncollinear parametric amplifier
We analytically find an approximate Bloch-Messiah reduction of a noncollinear
parametric amplifier pumped with a focused monochromatic beam. We consider type
I phase matching. The results are obtained using a perturbative expansion and
scaled to a high gain regime. They allow a straightforward maximization of the
signal gain and minimization of the parametric fluorescence noise. We find the
fundamental mode of the amplifier, which is an elliptic Gaussian defining the
optimal seed beam shape. We conclude that the output of the amplifier should be
stripped of higher order modes, which are approximately Hermite-Gaussian beams.
Alternatively, the pump waist can be adjusted such that the amount of noise
produced in the higher order modes is minimized.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, accepted to Applied Physics
QCD strings with spinning quarks
We construct a consistent action for a massive spinning quark on the end of a
QCD string that leads to pure Thomas precession of the quark's spin. The string
action is modified by the addition of Grassmann degrees of freedom to the
string such that the equations of motion for the quark spin follow from
boundary conditions, just as do those for the quark's position.Comment: REVTeX4, 10 pages, no figure
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