79,474 research outputs found
Anti-transpirant effects on vine physiology, berry and wine composition of cv. Aglianico (Vitis vinifera L.) Grown in South Italy
In viticulture, global warming requires reconsideration of current production models. At the base of this need there are some emerging phenomena: modification of phenological phases; acceleration of the maturation process of grapes, with significant increases in the concentration of sugar musts; decoupling between technological grape maturity and phenolic maturity. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effect of a natural anti-transpirant on grapevine physiology, berry, and wine composition of Aglianico cultivar. For two years, Aglianico vines were treated at veraison with the anti-transpirant Vapor Gard and compared with a control sprayed with only water. A bunch thinning was also applied to both treatments. The effectiveness of Vapor Gard were assessed through measurements of net photosynthesis and transpiration and analyzing the vegetative, productive and qualitative parameters. The results demonstrate that the application of antitranspirant reduced assimilation and transpiration rate, stomatal conductance, berry sugar accumulation, and wine alcohol content. No significant differences between treatments were observed for other berry and wine compositional parameters. This method may be a useful tool to reduce berry sugar content and to produce wines with a lower alcohol content
Directed transport of active particles over asymmetric energy barriers
We theoretically and numerically investigate the transport of active colloids
to target regions, delimited by asymmetric energy barriers. We show that it is
possible to introduce a generalized effective temperature that is related to
the local variance of particle velocities. The stationary probability
distributions can be derived from a simple diffusion equation in the presence
of an inhomogeneous effective temperature resulting from the action of external
force fields. In particular, transitions rates over asymmetric energy barriers
can be unbalanced by having different effective temperatures over the two
slopes of the barrier. By varying the type of active noise, we find that equal
values of diffusivity and persistence time may produce strongly varied
effective temperatures and thus stationary distributions
Spin-1 effective Hamiltonian with three degenerate orbitals: An application to the case of V_2O_3
Motivated by recent neutron and x-ray observations in V_2O_3, we derive the
effective Hamiltonian in the strong coupling limit of an Hubbard model with
three degenerate t_{2g} states containing two electrons coupled to spin S = 1,
and use it to re-examine the low-temperature ground-state properties of this
compound. An axial trigonal distortion of the cubic states is also taken into
account. Since there are no assumptions about the symmetry properties of the
hopping integrals involved, the resulting spin-orbital Hamiltonian can be
generally applied to any crystallographic configuration of the transition metal
ion giving rise to degenerate t_{2g} orbitals. Specializing to the case of
V_2O_3 we consider the antiferromagnetic insulating phase. We find two
variational regimes, depending on the relative size of the correlation energy
of the vertical pairs and the in-plane interaction energy. The former favors
the formation of stable molecules throughout the crystal, while the latter
tends to break this correlated state. We determine in both cases the minimizing
orbital solutions for various spin configurations, and draw the corresponding
phase diagrams. We find that none of the symmetry-breaking stable phases with
the real spin structure presents an orbital ordering compatible with the
magnetic space group indicated by very recent observations of non-reciprocal
x-ray gyrotropy in V_2O_3. We do however find a compatible solution with very
small excitation energy in two distinct regions of the phase space, which might
turn into the true ground state of V_2O_3 due to the favorable coupling with
the lattice. We illustrate merits and drawbacks of the various solutions and
discuss them in relation to the present experimental evidence.Comment: 36 pages, 19 figure
Critical behavior of plastic depinning of vortex lattices in two dimensions: Molecular dynamics simulations
Using molecular dynamics simulations, we report a study of the dynamics of
two-dimensional vortex lattices driven over a disordered medium. In strong
disorder, when topological order is lost, we show that the depinning transition
is analogous to a second order critical transition: the velocity-force response
at the onset of motion is continuous and characterized by critical exponents.
Combining studies at zero and nonzero temperature and using a scaling analysis,
two critical expo- nents are evaluated. We find v\sim (F-F_c)^\beta with
\beta=1.3\pm0.1 at T=0 and F>F_c, and v\sim T^{1/\delta} with
\delta^{-1}=0.75\pm0.1 at F=F_c, where F_c is the critical driving force at
which the lattice goes from a pinned state to a sliding one. Both critical
exponents and the scaling function are found to exhibit universality with
regard to the pinning strength and different disorder realizations.
Furthermore, the dynamics is shown to be chaotic in the whole critical region.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Single-particle and Interaction Effects on the Cohesion and Transport and Magnetic Properties of Metal Nanowires at Finite Voltages
The single-particle and interaction effects on the cohesion, electronic
transport, and some magnetic properties of metallic nanocylinders have been
studied at finite voltages by using a generalized mean-field electron model.
The electron-electron interactions are treated in the self-consistent Hartree
approximation. Our results show the single-particle effect is dominant in the
cohesive force, while the nonzero magnetoconductance and magnetotension
coefficients are attributed to the interaction effect. Both single-particle and
interaction effects are important to the differential conductance and magnetic
susceptibility.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure
Particle-hole character of the Higgs and Goldstone modes in strongly-interacting lattice bosons
We study the low-energy excitations of the Bose-Hubbard model in the
strongly-interacting superfluid phase using a Gutzwiller approach and extract
the single-particle and single-hole excitation amplitudes for each mode. We
report emergent mode-dependent particle-hole symmetry on specific arc-shaped
lines in the phase diagram connecting the well-known Lorentz-invariant limits
of the Bose-Hubbard model. By tracking the in-phase particle-hole symmetric
oscillations of the order parameter, we provide an answer to the long-standing
question about the fate of the pure amplitude Higgs mode away from the
integer-density critical point. Furthermore, we point out that out-of-phase
oscillations are responsible for a full suppression of the condensate density
oscillations of the gapless Goldstone mode. Possible detection protocols are
also discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Non-Gaussian fluctuations in stochastic models with absorbing barriers
The dynamics of a one-dimensional stochastic model is studied in presence of
an absorbing boundary. The distribution of fluctuations is analytically
characterized within the generalized van Kampen expansion, accounting for
higher order corrections beyond the conventional Gaussian approximation. The
theory is shown to successfully capture the non Gaussian traits of the sought
distribution returning an excellent agreement with the simulations, for {\it
all times} and arbitrarily {\it close} to the absorbing barrier. At large
times, a compact analytical solution for the distribution of fluctuations is
also obtained, bridging the gap with previous investigations, within the van
Kampen picture and without resorting to alternative strategies, as elsewhere
hypothesized.Comment: 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Total thyroidectomy associated to chemotherapy in primary squamous cell carcinoma of the thyroid
Primary squamous cell carcinoma of the thyroid (PSCCT) is a rare malignant disease with rapid fatal prognosis. The onset is generally characterized by sudden bilateral latero-cervical lymphadenopathy. The Authors report patient of 58-year-old who referred for evaluation of rapidly aggravating bilateral latero-cervical lymphadenopathy. The US highlighted the presence of a hypoechoic nodular lesion characterized by peri and intra-nodular vascularization. Multilayer CT showed diffused involvement of mediastinal and bilateral latero-cervical lymph nodes, with no evidence of primary pulmonary neoplasia or elsewhere. The patient underwent total thyroidectomy. The peri-isthmic tissue was removed due to the presence of a small roundish formation, that was due to lymph node metastasis at histological examination. Histological diagnosis: PSCCT. The immunohistochemical panel of the thyroid lesion was indispensable for the differential diagnosis between PSCCT, medullary carcinoma, anaplastic carcinoma, and thyroid metastasis of neoplasia with unknown primitiveness. The patient underwent chemotherapeutic treatment with Carboplatin and Paclitaxel with modest improvement of dysphagia symptoms and reduction of 10-15% of the target lesions. The clinical course was characterized by loco-regional progression of the disease with exitus in 10 months after diagnosis. Survival and quality of life after surgical therapy and chemotherapy were like that of patients undergoing only chemotherapy. Due to the extreme rarity of the neoplasia, 60 cases described in Literature, no exclusive guidelines are reported for PSCCT. More extensive case studies are needed to evaluate the effects of total thyroidectomy with intent R0/R1 on improving survival and quality of life of patients with PSCCT
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