Polariton effects in the dielectric function of ZnO excitons obtained by ellipsometry

This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 031904 (2010) and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3284656.The complex dielectric tensor of ZnO in the regime of the excitonic transitions is determined with ellipsometry and analyzed concerning the quantization of the electromagnetic field in terms of coupled polariton-eigenmodes. Negative sections in the real part indicate the significant formation of polaritons for the dipole-allowed excitons of the three upper valence-bands Γ7,Γ9,Γ7. The transverse-longitudinal splittings which separate the upper polariton branch from the lower branch, corresponding to the k-vector of the used light, are deduced precisely for each subband. Mainly for E∥c, additional absorption peaks are observed at the longitudinal B-exciton and closely above. One is considered to be a mixed-mode and the other is seen as a consequence of interference effects in an exciton free surface layer which is also visible in reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy.EC/FP7/218570/EU/MULTIFUNCTIONAL NANOMATERIALS CHARACTERISATION EXPLOITING ELLIPSOMETRY and POLARIMETRY/NANOCHAR

High-Income Household Spending And The Economic Recovery

In late 2007, the United States fell into a Great Recession. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research the recession officially ended in June 2009, but it took several more years for average household income and expenditures to exceed their 2008 levels in nominal terms. The recession lowered household income and consumer expenditures across all income groups. This Spotlight on Statistics examines trends in income and expenditures and how unevenly the gains were distributed across socioeconomic groups

Export of honeybee prepromelittin in Escherichia coli depends on the membrane potential but does not depend on proteins secA and secY

Honeybee prepromelittin (70 amino acid residues), the precursor of an eukaryotic secretory protein, and a hybrid protein between prepromelittin and mouse dihydrofolate reductase (257 amino acid residues) were expressed in Escherichia coli and characterized with respect to their requirements for transport across the plasma membrane. Both precursor proteins are posttranslationally processed and exported into the periplasm, and they both depend on the membrane potential for this to occur. With respect to dependence on components of the export machinery, however, the two precursor proteins show striking differences: the small precursor protein prepromelittin does not require the function of proteins secA and secY; the large precursor protein prepromelittin-dihydrofolate reductase, on the other hand, depends on both components. The implications of these observations with respect to the mechanisms of protein export in E. coli and of protein import into the endoplasmic reticulum are discussed

The cardiac metabolic treatment: effects of trimetazidine

Department of Interventional Cardiology, Institute of Cardiology, Chisinau, the Republic of MoldovaBackground: The heart affection at is associated with energy deficiency due to oxygen dearth which alters a lot of cardiac functions, most important of them being ion pump working, myocardial contractility and relaxation. Attempting of energy synthesis improvement is an important tenet of cardiac metabolic therapy leading to clinical and functional benefits. Nowadays trimetazidine (TMZ) is admittedly recognized as a reliable remedy providing energetic gain, thereby, inhibition of mitochondrial long chain 3-ketoacyl Co-enzyme A thiolase involved in free fatty acids oxidation, shifting energy synthesis toward glucose oxidation which needs lesser oxygen consumption by up to 25%. Material and methods: This article is aimed at the revealing of TMZ effects on patients with stable angina pectoris, ischemia-reperfusion syndrome and chronic heart failure inclusively based on evidences of A level (data of randomized trials and meta-analyses). Added to standard anti-ischemic therapy, TMZ (60 or 70 mg/day) has led to a significant increase of time and volume of physical effort, period of ST decline and angina appearing, as well as reducing of angina episodes per day and anti-anginal remedies’ dosage. Results: The chronic heart failure therapy supplementation by TMZ induced a more conspicuous decrease of NYHA class, preserved ventricular end-systolic and end-diastolic volumes, Tei index value, B-type natriuretic peptide blood level, while ejection fraction raised higher even in patients with diabetes mellitus. Conclusions: It is important to emphasize the TMZ capacity to blunt the oxidative stress activity, nonspecific inflammation response and cell apoptosis during myocardial ischemia-reperfusion, to improve the function of affected and hibernating myocardium, to prevent or attenuate the cardiovascular sequels after coronary revascularization by artery bypass surgery or angioplasty with stent implantation

Ribonucleoparticle-independent transport of proteins into mammalian microsomes

There are at least two different mechanisms for the transport of secretory proteins into the mammalian endoplasmic reticulum. Both mechanisms depend on the presence of a signal peptide on the respective precursor protein and involve a signal peptide receptor on the cis-side and signal peptidase on the trans-side of the membrane. Furthermore, both mechanisms involve a membrane component with a cytoplasmically exposed sulfhydryl. The decisive feature of the precursor protein with respect to which of the two mechanisms is used is the chain length of the polypeptide. The critical size seems to be around 70 amino acid residues (including the signal peptide). The one mechanism is used by precursor proteins larger than about 70 amino acid residues and involves two cytosolic ribonucleoparticles and their receptors on the microsomal surface. The other one is used by small precursor proteins and relies on the mature part within the precursor molecule and a cytosolic ATPase

Diastolic disorder inherent to doxorubicin cardiotoxicity

Background: The doxorubicin (Dx) cardiotoxicity is manifested by a marked heart failure evolution. The impact of Dx on lusitrop functions of the heart and the inherent diastolic disorders have a theoretical and practical value for the connection cardiology-oncology. Material and methods: Dx cardiotoxicity was reproduced by its administration i/p in white rats in cumulative dose 16 mg/kg (Dx group n=9). Control group (n=9) received only physiological solution. The study was performed in vitro by using models of isolated heart perfusion in either isovolumic or exterior working regimens. The assayed indices of diastole functioning were: left ventricle (LV) end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP), diastolic stiffness, isovolumic relaxation velocity (-dP/dTmax) and protodiastolic pressure of LV (LVPDP). Results: The indices of diastolic disorders induced by Dx were elevation of LVEDP, diastolic stiffness and LVPDP in a range of 97-168% comparing to control as well as diminution of -dP/dTmax in the physiological pattern of hemodynamics. LVEDP increased more in conditions of calcium overloading or endothelin-1 (ET-1) action that are involved in pathogenesis of diastolic rigidity. Dx action led to decrease of myocardium resistance to ischemiareperfusion action resulting in the LVEDP elevation by 53% comparing to control. Conclusions: 1. Diastolic disorders inherent to Dx cardiotoxicity are manifested by the increase of LVEDP and diastolic stiffness. 2. Diastolic disorders compromised the volume-pressure relationship of LV, the adaptation of the heart to effort with volume, being more pronounced during the action of calcium excess and ET-1

Plasmonics: Enabling functionalities with novel materials

The Guest Editors sincerely thank all of the authors for their contributing articles. We are grateful to the Journal of Applied Physics Driving Editors, Professor Rachel Goldman and Professor David Aspnes, for their support as well as the American Institute of Physics publishing staff for helping and promoting the Special Topic issue “Plasmonics: Enabling functionalities with novel materials.” The Guest Editors also acknowledge the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under Grant Agreement No. 899598 FET OPEN—PHEMTRONICS

Architecture for enhancing video analysis results using complementary resources

In this paper we present different sources of information complementary to audio-visual (A/V) streams and propose their usage for enriching A/V data with semantic concepts in order to bridge the gap between low-level video analysis and high-level analysis. Our aim is to extract cross-media feature descriptors from semantically enriched and aligned resources so as to detect finer-grained events in video. We introduce an architecture for complementary resources analysis and discuss domain dependency aspects of this approach connected to our initial domain of soccer broadcasts