1,606 research outputs found
THE RESPONSE OF MECHANORECEPTORS IN RAT SKIN TO BIAXIAL LOADING: A PRELIMINARY STUDY
ABSTRACT Mechanoreceptor neurons were studied in an isolated rat skin preparation subjected to dynamic biaxial stretch. The strength of the relationship between neuronal responses and mechanical variables was determined using multiple logistic regression. The experimental protocol allowed the normal stresses as well as the maximum shear stress to be manipulated. In n=4 neurons, response was associated with the time rate of change of normal stress and this response was affected by the direction of loading. There was no relationship between response and the value of maximum shear stress. There was a strong association with the rate of change of maximum shear stress. INTRODUCTION Mechanoreceptors are sensory neurons that are activated by mechanical stimulation of soft tissues. There are large numbers of mechanoreceptors in skin, and virtually all of them can be activated by stretch stimuli. Stretching skin alters the states of both stress and strain. Work in our laboratory has focused on determining the coupling between stretch-evoked responses in cutaneous neurons and the stress and strain components of stretch stimuli. Recently
Temperature dependence of the collective mode and its influence on the band splitting in bilayer cuprates
The recently observed bilayer splitting in high-T cuprates is analyzed
within a model where the charge carriers are coupled to a phenomenological
bosonic spectrum which interpolates between the marginal Fermi liquid structure
and collective mode type behavior as a function of temperature. We argue that
the origin of the collective mode is probably associated with dynamic
incommensurate charge density waves. Moreover it is shown that the resulting
temperature dependence of the self-energy is in good agreement with
as extracted from angle-resolved photoemission data.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for PR
A preliminary study of genetic factors that influence susceptibility to bovine tuberculosis in the British cattle herd
Associations between specific host genes and susceptibility to Mycobacterial infections such as tuberculosis have been reported in several species. Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) impacts greatly the UK cattle industry, yet genetic predispositions have yet to be identified. We therefore used a candidate gene approach to study 384 cattle of which 160 had reacted positively to an antigenic skin test (‘reactors’). Our approach was unusual in that it used microsatellite markers, embraced high breed diversity and focused particularly on detecting genes showing heterozygote advantage, a mode of action often overlooked in SNP-based studies. A panel of neutral markers was used to control for population substructure and using a general linear model-based approach we were also able to control for age. We found that substructure was surprisingly weak and identified two genomic regions that were strongly associated with reactor status, identified by markers INRA111 and BMS2753. In general the strength of association detected tended to vary depending on whether age was included in the model. At INRA111 a single genotype appears strongly protective with an overall odds ratio of 2.2, the effect being consistent across nine diverse breeds. Our results suggest that breeding strategies could be devised that would appreciably increase genetic resistance of cattle to bTB (strictly, reduce the frequency of incidence of reactors) with implications for the current debate concerning badger-culling
Simulating the Formation of the Local Galaxy Population
We simulate the formation and evolution of the local galaxy population
starting from initial conditions with a smoothed linear density field which
matches that derived from the IRAS 1.2 Jy galaxy survey. Our simulations track
the formation and evolution of all dark matter haloes more massive than 10e+11
solar masses out to a distance of 8000 km/s from the Milky Way. We implement
prescriptions similar to those of Kauffmann et al. (1999) to follow the
assembly and evolution of the galaxies within these haloes. We focus on two
variants of the CDM cosmology: an LCDM and a tCDM model. Galaxy formation in
each is adjusted to reproduce the I-band Tully-Fisher relation of Giovanelli et
al. (1997). We compare the present-day luminosity functions, colours,
morphology and spatial distribution of our simulated galaxies with those of the
real local population, in particular with the Updated Zwicky Catalog, with the
IRAS PSCz redshift survey, and with individual local clusters such as Coma,
Virgo and Perseus. We also use the simulations to study the clustering bias
between the dark matter and galaxies of differing type. Although some
significant discrepancies remain, our simulations recover the observed
intrinsic properties and the observed spatial distribution of local galaxies
reasonably well. They can thus be used to calibrate methods which use the
observed local galaxy population to estimate the cosmic density parameter or to
draw conclusions about the mechanisms of galaxy formation. To facilitate such
work, we publically release our z=0 galaxy catalogues, together with the
underlying mass distribution.Comment: 25 pages, 20 figures, submitted to MNRAS. High resolution copies of
figures 1 and 3, halo and galaxy catalogues can be found at
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/NumCos/CR/index.htm
Spectrum and Morphology of the Two Brightest Milagro Sources in the Cygnus Region: MGRO J2019+37 and MGRO J2031+41
The Cygnus region is a very bright and complex portion of the TeV sky, host
to unidentified sources and a diffuse excess with respect to conventional
cosmic-ray propagation models. Two of the brightest TeV sources, MGRO J2019+37
and MGRO J2031+41, are analyzed using Milagro data with a new technique, and
their emission is tested under two different spectral assumptions: a power law
and a power law with an exponential cutoff. The new analysis technique is based
on an energy estimator that uses the fraction of photomultiplier tubes in the
observatory that detect the extensive air shower. The photon spectrum is
measured in the range 1 to 200 TeV using the last 3 years of Milagro data
(2005-2008), with the detector in its final configuration. MGRO J2019+37 is
detected with a significance of 12.3 standard deviations (), and is
better fit by a power law with an exponential cutoff than by a simple power
law, with a probability % (F-test). The best-fitting parameters for the
power law with exponential cutoff model are a normalization at 10 TeV of
, a spectral
index of and a cutoff energy of TeV. MGRO
J2031+41 is detected with a significance of 7.3, with no evidence of a
cutoff. The best-fitting parameters for a power law are a normalization of
and a
spectral index of . The overall flux is subject to an
30% systematic uncertainty. The systematic uncertainty on the power law
indices is 0.1. A comparison with previous results from TeV J2032+4130,
MGRO J2031+41 and MGRO J2019+37 is also presented.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure
TeV Gamma-Ray Sources from a Survey of the Galactic Plane with Milagro
A survey of Galactic gamma-ray sources at a median energy of ~20 TeV has been
performed using the Milagro Gamma Ray Observatory. Eight candidate sources of
TeV emission are detected with pre-trials significance in the
region of Galactic longitude and latitude
. Four of these sources, including the Crab nebula
and the recently published MGRO J2019+37, are observed with significances
after accounting for the trials involved in searching the 3800
square degree region. All four of these sources are also coincident with EGRET
sources. Two of the lower significance sources are coincident with EGRET
sources and one of these sources is Geminga. The other two candidates are in
the Cygnus region of the Galaxy. Several of the sources appear to be spatially
extended. The fluxes of the sources at 20 TeV range from ~25% of the Crab flux
to nearly as bright as the Crab.Comment: Submitted to Ap
Discovery of Localized Regions of Excess 10-TeV Cosmic Rays
An analysis of 7 years of Milagro data performed on a 10-degree angular scale
has found two localized regions of excess of unknown origin with greater than
12 sigma significance. Both regions are inconsistent with gamma-ray emission
with high confidence. One of the regions has a different energy spectrum than
the isotropic cosmic-ray flux at a level of 4.6 sigma, and it is consistent
with hard spectrum protons with an exponential cutoff, with the most
significant excess at ~10 TeV. Potential causes of these excesses are explored,
but no compelling explanations are found.Comment: Submitted to PhysRevLet
On the Self-Similar Appearance of Galaxy Clusters in X-rays
The largest uncertainty for cosmological studies using clusters of galaxies
is introduced by our limited knowledge of the statistics of galaxy cluster
structure, and of the scaling relations between observables and cluster mass. A
large effort is therefore undertaken to compile global galaxy cluster
properties in particular obtained through X-ray observations and to study their
scaling relations. However, the scaling schemes used in the literature differ.
The present paper aims to clarify this situation by providing a thorough review
of the scaling laws within the standard model of large-scale structure growth
and to discus various steps of practical approximations. We derive the scaling
laws for X-ray observables and cluster mass within the pure gravitational
structure growth scenario. Using N-body simulations we test the recent
formation approximation used in earlier analytic approaches which involves a
redshift dependent overdensity parameter.We find this approximation less
precise than the use of a fiducial radius based on a fixed overdensity with
respect to critical density. Inspired by the comparison of the predicted
scaling relations with observations we propose a first order modification of
the scaling scheme to include the observed effects of hydrodynamics in
structure formation. This modification involves a cluster mass dependent gas
mass fraction. We also discuss the observational results of the reshift
evolution of the most important scaling relations and find that also a redshift
dependence of the gas mass to total mass relation has to be invoked within our
modification scheme. We find that the current observational data are within
their uncertainties consistent with the proposed modified scaling laws.Comment: Astronomy and Astrophysics (in press) 14 pages, 6 figure
The Study of TeV Variability and Duty Cycle of Mrk 421 from 3 Years of Observations with the Milagro Observatory
TeV flaring activity with time scales as short as tens of minutes and an
orphan TeV flare have been observed from the blazar Markarian 421 (Mrk 421).
The TeV emission from Mrk 421 is believed to be produced by leptonic
synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) emission. In this scenario, correlations between
the X-ray and the TeV fluxes are expected, TeV orphan flares are hardly
explained and the activity (measured as duty cycle) of the source at TeV
energies is expected to be equal or less than that observed in X-rays if only
SSC is considered. To estimate the TeV duty cycle of Mrk 421 and to establish
limits on its variability at different time scales, we continuously observed
Mrk 421 with the Milagro observatory. Mrk 421 was detected by Milagro with a
statistical significance of 7.1 standard deviations between 2005 September 21
and 2008 March 15. The observed spectrum is consistent with previous
observations by VERITAS. We estimate the duty cycle of Mrk 421 for energies
above 1 TeV for different hypothesis of the baseline flux and for different
flare selections and we compare our results with the X-ray duty cycle estimated
by Resconi et al. 2009. The robustness of the results is discussed.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, ApJ accepte
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