478 research outputs found
Boundary Dissipation in a Driven Hard Disk System
A simulation is performed aiming at checking the existence of a well defined
stationary state for a two dimensional system of driven hard disks when energy
dissipation takes place at the system boundaries and no bulk impurities are
presentComment: 5 pages, 7 figure
Intraocular solitary extramedullary plasmacytoma presenting as unilateral anterior and intermediate uveitis preceded by refractory glaucoma
Background: Solitary extramedullary plasmacytoma (SEP) is a localised proliferation of monoclonal plasma cells involving soft tissue with no or minimal bone marrow involvement and no other systemic evidence of multiple myeloma. Intraocular involvement is exceedingly rare. Case presentation: We report a 78-year-old man who was referred with glaucoma in the right eye. He subsequently developed anterior chamber (AC) inflammation and refractory glaucoma then dense vitritis. A vitrectomy was performed with the biopsy revealing numerous plasma cells with atypical findings. In conjunction with the flow cytometry results, and a systemic work up excluding multiple myeloma, a diagnosis of SEP was made. The patient was treated with ocular external beam radiotherapy with resolution of the intraocular inflammation and control of the intraocular pressure. He remains well with no local recurrence and no development of multiple myeloma over a follow up period of 2.5 years. Conclusions: This is the first case report of SEP presenting as intraocular inflammation without a uveal tract mass
Measuring Nonequilibrium Temperature of Forced Oscillators
The meaning of temperature in nonequilibrium thermodynamics is considered by
using a forced harmonic oscillator in a heat bath, where we have two effective
temperatures for the position and the momentum, respectively. We invent a
concrete model of a thermometer to testify the validity of these different
temperatures from the operational point of view. It is found that the measured
temperature depends on a specific form of interaction between the system and a
thermometer, which means the zeroth law of thermodynamics cannot be immediately
extended to nonequilibrium cases.Comment: 8 page
Ferroelectric and Dipolar Glass Phases of Non-Crystalline Systems
In a recent letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 75}, 2360 (1996)] we briefly
discussed the existence and nature of ferroelectric order in positionally
disordered dipolar materials. Here we report further results and give a
complete description of our work. Simulations of randomly frozen and
dynamically disordered dipolar soft spheres are used to study ferroelectric
ordering in non-crystalline systems. We also give a physical interpretation of
the simulation results in terms of short- and long-range interactions. Cases
where the dipole moment has 1, 2, and 3 components (Ising, XY and XYZ models,
respectively) are considered. It is found that the Ising model displays
ferroelectric phases in frozen amorphous systems, while the XY and XYZ models
form dipolar glass phases at low temperatures. In the dynamically disordered
model the equations of motion are decoupled such that particle translation is
completely independent of the dipolar forces. These systems spontaneously
develop long-range ferroelectric order at nonzero temperature despite the
absence of any fined-tuned short-range spatial correlations favoring dipolar
order. Furthermore, since this is a nonequilibrium model we find that the
paraelectric to ferroelectric transition depends on the particle mass. For the
XY and XYZ models, the critical temperatures extrapolate to zero as the mass of
the particle becomes infinite, whereas, for the Ising model the critical
temperature is almost independent of mass and coincides with the ferroelectric
transition found for the randomly frozen system at the same density. Thus in
the infinite mass limit the results of the frozen amorphous systems are
recovered.Comment: 25 pages (LATEX, no macros). 11 POSTSCRIPT figures enclosed.
Submitted to Phisical Review E. Contact: [email protected]
A molecular dynamics study on the equilibrium magnetization properties and structure of ferrofluids
We investigate in detail the initial susceptibility, magnetization curves,
and microstructure of ferrofluids in various concentration and particle dipole
moment ranges by means of molecular dynamics simulations. We use the Ewald
summation for the long-range dipolar interactions, take explicitly into account
the translational and rotational degrees of freedom, coupled to a Langevin
thermostat. When the dipolar interaction energy is comparable with the thermal
energy, the simulation results on the magnetization properties agree with the
theoretical predictions very well. For stronger dipolar couplings, however, we
find systematic deviations from the theoretical curves. We analyze in detail
the observed microstructure of the fluids under different conditions. The
formation of clusters is found to enhance the magnetization at weak fields and
thus leads to a larger initial susceptibility. The influence of the particle
aggregation is isolated by studying ferro-solids, which consist of magnetic
dipoles frozen in at random locations but which are free to rotate. Due to the
artificial suppression of clusters in ferro-solids the observed susceptibility
is considerably lowered when compared to ferrofluids.Comment: 33 pages including 12 figures, requires RevTex
A phenomenological approach to the simulation of metabolism and proliferation dynamics of large tumour cell populations
A major goal of modern computational biology is to simulate the collective
behaviour of large cell populations starting from the intricate web of
molecular interactions occurring at the microscopic level. In this paper we
describe a simplified model of cell metabolism, growth and proliferation,
suitable for inclusion in a multicell simulator, now under development
(Chignola R and Milotti E 2004 Physica A 338 261-6). Nutrients regulate the
proliferation dynamics of tumor cells which adapt their behaviour to respond to
changes in the biochemical composition of the environment. This modeling of
nutrient metabolism and cell cycle at a mesoscopic scale level leads to a
continuous flow of information between the two disparate spatiotemporal scales
of molecular and cellular dynamics that can be simulated with modern computers
and tested experimentally.Comment: 58 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables, pdf onl
An update on retinal prostheses
Retinal prostheses are designed to restore a basic sense of sight to people with profound vision loss. They require a relatively intact posterior visual pathway (optic nerve, lateral geniculate nucleus and visual cortex). Retinal implants are options for people with severe stages of retinal degenerative disease such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.
There have now been three regulatory-approved retinal prostheses. Over five hundred patients have been implanted globally over the past 15 years. Devices generally provide an improved ability to localize high-contrast objects, navigate, and perform basic orientation tasks. Adverse events have included conjunctival erosion, retinal detachment, loss of light perception, and the need for revision surgery, but are rare. There are also specific device risks, including overstimulation (which could cause damage to the retina) or delamination of implanted components, but these are very unlikely.
Current challenges include how to improve visual acuity, enlarge the field-of-view, and reduce a complex visual scene to its most salient components through image processing. This review encompasses the work of over 40 individual research groups who have built devices, developed stimulation strategies, or investigated the basic physiology underpinning retinal prostheses. Current technologies are summarized, along with future challenges that face the field
Orientational Ordering in Spatially Disordered Dipolar Systems
This letter addresses basic questions concerning ferroelectric order in
positionally disordered dipolar materials. Three models distinguished by dipole
vectors which have one, two or three components are studied by computer
simulation. Randomly frozen and dynamically disordered media are considered. It
is shown that ferroelectric order is possible in spatially random systems, but
that its existence is very sensitive to the dipole vector dimensionality and
the motion of the medium. A physical analysis of our results provides
significant insight into the nature of ferroelectric transitions.Comment: 4 pages twocolumn LATEX style. 4 POSTSCRIPT figures available from
[email protected]
A multibaker map for shear flow and viscous heating
A consistent description of shear flow and the accompanied viscous heating as
well the associated entropy balance is given in the framework of a
deterministic dynamical system. A laminar shear flow is modeled by a
Hamiltonian multibaker map which drives velocity and temperature fields. In an
appropriate macroscopic limit one recovers the Navier-Stokes and heat
conduction equations along with the associated entropy balance. This indicates
that results of nonequilibrium thermodynamics can be described by means of an
abstract, sufficiently chaotic and mixing dynamics. A thermostating algorithm
can also be incorporated into this framework.Comment: 11 pages; RevTex with multicol+graphicx packages; eps-figure
Curvature-coupling dependence of membrane protein diffusion coefficients
We consider the lateral diffusion of a protein interacting with the curvature
of the membrane. The interaction energy is minimized if the particle is at a
membrane position with a certain curvature that agrees with the spontaneous
curvature of the particle. We employ stochastic simulations that take into
account both the thermal fluctuations of the membrane and the diffusive
behavior of the particle. In this study we neglect the influence of the
particle on the membrane dynamics, thus the membrane dynamics agrees with that
of a freely fluctuating membrane. Overall, we find that this curvature-coupling
substantially enhances the diffusion coefficient. We compare the ratio of the
projected or measured diffusion coefficient and the free intramembrane
diffusion coefficient, which is a parameter of the simulations, with analytical
results that rely on several approximations. We find that the simulations
always lead to a somewhat smaller diffusion coefficient than our analytical
approach. A detailed study of the correlations of the forces acting on the
particle indicates that the diffusing inclusion tries to follow favorable
positions on the membrane, such that forces along the trajectory are on average
smaller than they would be for random particle positions.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure
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