What is the length of a knot in a polymer?

We give statistical definitions of the length, l, of a loose prime knot tied into a long, fluctuating ring macromolecule. Monte Carlo results for the equilibrium, good solvent regime show that ~ N^t, where N is the ring length and t ~ 0.75 is independent of the knot topology. In the collapsed regime below the theta temperature, length determinations based on the entropic competition of different knots within the same ring show delocalization (t~1).Comment: 9 pages, 5 Postscript figure

Comparison of European stone fruit yellows phytoplasma strains differing in virulence by multi-gene sequence analyses

Twenty strains of the ESFY phytoplasma, which on the basis of graft-inoculation experiments greatly differ in aggressiveness, were examined by sequence analyses of several PCR-amplified non-ribosomal genes in order to identify molecular markers linked to virulence. These strains, which were maintained in P. insititia rootstock St. Julien GF 655/2 were indistinguishable with techniques for routine phytoplasma differentiation and characterization such as sequence and RFLP analyses of PCR-amplified rDNA. Also, the virulent ESFY strains maintained in periwinkle, namely GSFY1, GSFY2 and ESFY1, as well as an avirulent strain of the same phytoplasma, maintained in apricot, which was identified in recovered apricot trees in France and used there as a cross protecting agent, were included in the work for comparison. For PCR amplification, primers were designed from a number of genes distributed over the chromosome of the closely related apple proliferation phytoplasma strain AT. Visible PCR products were only obtained with primer pairs derived from the tuf gene which encodes the elongation factor Tu (EF-Tu), rpsC (rps3) gene encoding the ribosomal protein S3, tlyC gene which encodes a hemolysin known as a membrane-damaging agent and important virulence factor of many bacteria, the imp and fol genes encoding an immunodominant membrane protein and an enzyme involved in the folate biosynthesis, respectively. Nucleotide sequence comparisons revealed that the highest genomic variability occurred within the imp gene sequence with dissimilarity values ranging from 0.2 to 4.6%. For the remaining genes, the strains examined proved to be identical or nearly identical. Within the tuf gene, an extra TaqI site known to occur in strain GSFY1 was not identified in other strains. The genetic differences observed among the strains examined are neither suitable markers for strain differentiation nor linked to pathological traits.Keywords: European stone fruit yellows, strain virulence, 16SrX group, tlyC gene, Prunus spp

A scale-free network hidden in the collapsing polymer

We show that the collapsed globular phase of a polymer accommodates a scale-free incompatibility graph of its contacts. The degree distribution of this network is found to decay with the exponent $\gamma = 1/(2-c)$ up to a cut-off degree $d_c \propto L^{2-c}$, where $c$ is the loop exponent for dense polymers ($c=11/8$ in two dimensions) and $L$ is the length of the polymer. Our results exemplify how a scale-free network (SFN) can emerge from standard criticality.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, address correcte

Average Structures of a Single Knotted Ring Polymer

Two types of average structures of a single knotted ring polymer are studied by Brownian dynamics simulations. For a ring polymer with N segments, its structure is represented by a 3N -dimensional conformation vector consisting of the Cartesian coordinates of the segment positions relative to the center of mass of the ring polymer. The average structure is given by the average conformation vector, which is self-consistently defined as the average of the conformation vectors obtained from a simulation each of which is rotated to minimize its distance from the average conformation vector. From each conformation vector sampled in a simulation, 2N conformation vectors are generated by changing the numbering of the segments. Among the 2N conformation vectors, the one closest to the average conformation vector is used for one type of the average structure. The other type of the averages structure uses all the conformation vectors generated from those sampled in a simulation. In thecase of the former average structure, the knotted part of the average structure is delocalized for small N and becomes localized as N is increased. In the case of the latter average structure, the average structure changes from a double loop structure for small N to a single loop structure for large N, which indicates the localization-delocalization transition of the knotted part.Comment: 15 pages, 19 figures, uses jpsj2.cl

Diffusion of a ring polymer in good solution via the Brownian dynamics

Diffusion constants D_{R} and D_{L} of ring and linear polymers of the same molecular weight in a good solvent, respectively, have been evaluated through the Brownian dynamics with hydrodynamic interaction. The ratio $C=D_{R}/D_{L}$, which should be universal in the context of the renormalization group, has been estimated as $C= 1.11 \pm 0.01$ for the large-N limit. It should be consistent with that of synthetic polymers, while it is smaller than that of DNAs such as $C \approx 1.3$. Furthermore, the probability of the ring polymer being a nontrivial knot is found to be very small, while bond crossings may occur at almost all time steps in the present simulation that realizes the good solvent conditions.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Espaços urbanos frente à atividade turística na praia fluvial do Jacaré, Cabedelo-PB

Não contém.O presente trabalho analisa o espaço urbano a partir ,da influencia do turismo e os impactos ambientais gerados na praia fluvial na praia do Jacaré, em CabedeloPB. Trata-se, portanto, de um trabalho de revisão de bibliografia: no primeiro momento, a revisão da literatura selecionada sobre a urbanização ; no segundo momento, a caracterização da área estudada e a relação dela com a atividade turística por último, conceitos sobre Turismo e os aspectos ambientais. A pesquisa utilizou-se de primários através de entrevistas com moradores mais antigos da região que tiveram influencia sobre a a atual configuração da Orla da praia do Jacaré. Também foi realizado um levantamento fotográfico da área de estudo, levantamento de dados em referências bibliográficas que somaram a entender o espaço urbano e o Turismo. Justificando-se pela necessidade de fazer um estudo sobre a situação ambiental na praia do jacaré pois, em alguns anos a localidade passou a ser um ponto turístico visitado diariamente e área não oferece estrutura adequada para a demanda turística. O processo de urbanização já implica em uma série de transformação no espaço, o turismo também é uma atividade que esta em constante crescimento juntos, geram impactos ao meio ambiente que podem ser negativos ou positivos, dependendo da forma que é aproveitado

Diffusion mechanisms of localised knots along a polymer

We consider the diffusive motion of a localized knot along a linear polymer chain. In particular, we derive the mean diffusion time of the knot before it escapes from the chain once it gets close to one of the chain ends. Self-reptation of the entire chain between either end and the knot position, during which the knot is provided with free volume, leads to an L^3 scaling of diffusion time; for sufficiently long chains, subdiffusion will enhance this time even more. Conversely, we propose local ``breathing'', i.e., local conformational rearrangement inside the knot region (KR) and its immediate neighbourhood, as additional mechanism. The contribution of KR-breathing to the diffusion time scales only quadratically, L^2, speeding up the knot escape considerably and guaranteeing finite knot mobility even for very long chains.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Accepted to Europhys. Let

Impedance measurements and simulations on the TCT and TDI LHC collimators

The LHC collimation system is a critical element for the safe operation of the LHC machine and it is subject to continuous performance monitoring, hardware upgrade and optimization. In this work we will address the impact on impedance of the upgrades performed on the injection protection target dump (TDI), where the absorber material has been changed to mitigate the device heating observed in machine operation, and on selected secondary (TCS) and tertiary (TCT) collimators, where beam position monitors (BPM) have been embedded for faster jaw alignment. Con- cerning the TDI, we will present the RF measurements per- formed before and after the upgrade, comparing the result to heating and tune shift beam measurements. For the TCTs, we will study how the higher order modes (HOM) intro- duced by the BPM addition have been cured by means of ferrite placement in the device. The impedance mitigation campaign has been supported by RF measurements whose results are in good agreement with GdfidL and CST simula- tions. The presence of undamped low frequency modes is proved not to be detrimental to the safe LHC operation