3,990 research outputs found
Shear-induced rigidity of frictional particles: Analysis of emergent order in stress space
Solids are distinguished from fluids by their ability to resist shear. In
traditional solids, the resistance to shear is associated with the emergence of
broken translational symmetry as exhibited by a non-uniform density pattern,
which results from either minimizing the energy cost or maximizing the entropy
or both. In this work, we focus on a class of systems, where this paradigm is
challenged. We show that shear-driven jamming in dry granular materials is a
collective process controlled solely by the constraints of mechanical
equilibrium. We argue that these constraints lead to a broken translational
symmetry in a dual space that encodes the statistics of contact forces and the
topology of the contact network. The shear-jamming transition is marked by the
appearance of this broken symmetry. We extend our earlier work, by comparing
and contrasting real space measures of rheology with those obtained from the
dual space. We investigate the structure and behavior of the dual space as the
system evolves through the rigidity transition in two different shear
protocols. We analyze the robustness of the shear-jamming scenario with respect
to protocol and packing fraction, and demonstrate that it is possible to define
a protocol-independent order parameter in this dual space, which signals the
onset of rigidity.Comment: 14 pages, 17 figure
Geometrothermodynamics of the Kehagias-Sfetsos Black Hole
The application of information geometric ideas to statistical mechanics using
a metric on the space of states, pioneered by Ruppeiner and Weinhold, has
proved to be a useful alternative approach to characterizing phase transitions.
Some puzzling anomalies become apparent, however, when these methods are
applied to the study of black hole thermodynamics. A possible resolution was
suggested by Quevedo et al. who emphasized the importance of Legendre
invariance in thermodynamic metrics. They found physically consistent results
for various black holes when using a Legendre invariant metric, which agreed
with a direct determination of the properties of phase transitions from the
specific heat.
Recently, information geometric methods have been employed by Wei et al. to
study the Kehagias-Sfetsos (KS) black hole in Horava-Lifshitz gravity. The
formalism suggests that a coupling parameter in this theory plays a role
analogous to the charge in Reissner-Nordstrom (RN) black holes or angular
momentum in the Kerr black hole and calculation of the specific heat shows a
singularity which may be interpreted as a phase transition. When the curvature
of the Ruppeiner metric is calculated for such a theory it does not, however,
show a singularity at the phase transition point.
We show that the curvature of a particular Legendre invariant ("Quevedo")
metric for the KS black hole is singular at the phase transition point. We
contrast the results for the Ruppeiner, Weinhold and Quevedo metrics and in the
latter case investigate the consistency of taking either the entropy or mass as
the thermodynamic potential.Comment: v2: some references adde
BI-69A11 enhances susceptibility of colon cancer cells to mda-7/IL-24-induced growth inhibition by targeting Akt
Background: Akt and its downstream signalling pathways contribute to the aetiology and progression of Colorectal Carcinoma (CRC). Targeting the Akt pathway is an attractive strategy but few chemotherapeutic drugs have been used to treat CRC with only limited success. BI-69A11, a small molecule inhibitor of Akt, efficiently inhibits growth in melanoma cells. Melanoma differentiation associated gene-7 (mda-7)/interleukin-24 promotes cancer-selective apoptosis when delivered by a tropism-modified replication incompetent adenovirus (Ad.5/3-mda-7). However, Ad.5/3-mda-7 displays diminished antitumour efficacy in several CRC cell lines, which correlates with the expression of K-RAS. Methods: The individual and combinatorial effect of BI-69A11 and Ad.5/3-mda-7 in vitro was studied by cell viability, cell cycle, apoptosis and invasion assays in HT29 and HCT116 cells containing wild type or mutant K-ras, respectively. In vivo HT29 tumour xenografts were used to test the efficacy of the combination treatment. Results: BI-69A11 inhibited growth and induced apoptosis in CRC. However, combinatorial treatment was more effective compared with single treatment. This combination showed profound antitumour and anti angiogenic effects in vitro and in vivo by downregulating Akt activity. Conclusions: BI-69A11 enhances the antitumour efficacy of Ad.5/3-mda-7 on CRC overexpressing K-RAS by inducing apoptosis and regulating Akt activity thereby warranting further evaluation in treating CRC
Tweakable HCTR: A BBB Secure Tweakable Enciphering Scheme
\textsf{HCTR}, proposed by Wang et al., is one of the most efficient candidates of tweakable enciphering schemes that turns an -bit block cipher into a variable input length tweakable block cipher. Wang et al. have shown that \textsf{HCTR} offers a cubic security bound against all adaptive chosen plaintext and chosen ciphertext adversaries. Later in FSE 2008, Chakraborty and Nandi have improved its bound to , where is the total number of blocks queried and is the block size of the block cipher. In this paper, we propose \textbf{tweakable \textsf{HCTR}} that turns an -bit tweakable block cipher to a variable input length tweakable block cipher by replacing all the block cipher calls of \textsf{HCTR} with tweakable block cipher. We show that when there is no repetition of the tweak, tweakable \textsf{HCTR} enjoys the optimal security against all adaptive chosen plaintext and chosen ciphertext adversaries. However, if the repetition of the tweak is limited, then the security of the construction remains close to the security bound in no repetition of the tweak case. Hence, it gives a graceful security degradation with the maximum number of repetition of tweaks
Geometrothermodynamics of five dimensional black holes in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet-theory
We investigate the thermodynamic properties of 5D static and spherically
symmetric black holes in (i) Einstein-Maxwell-Gauss-Bonnet theory, (ii)
Einstein-Maxwell-Gauss-Bonnet theory with negative cosmological constant, and
in (iii) Einstein-Yang-Mills-Gauss-Bonnet theory. To formulate the
thermodynamics of these black holes we use the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy
relation and, alternatively, a modified entropy formula which follows from the
first law of thermodynamics of black holes. The results of both approaches are
not equivalent. Using the formalism of geometrothermodynamics, we introduce in
the manifold of equilibrium states a Legendre invariant metric for each black
hole and for each thermodynamic approach, and show that the thermodynamic
curvature diverges at those points where the temperature vanishes and the heat
capacity diverges.Comment: New sections added, references adde
Electroosmotic flow of biorheological micropolar fluids through microfluidic channels
An analysis is presented in this work to assess the influence of micropolar nature of fluids in fully developed flow induced by electrokinetically driven peristaltic pumping through a parallel plate microchannel. The walls of the channel are assumed as sinusoidal wavy to analyze the peristaltic flow nature. We consider that the wavelength of the wall motion is much larger as compared to the channel width to validate the lubrication theory. To simplify the Poisson Boltzmann equation, we also use the Debye-Hückel linearization (i.e. wall zeta potential ≤ 25mV). We consider governing equation for micropolar fluid in absence of body force and couple effects however external electric field is employed. The solutions for axial velocity, spin velocity, flow rate, pressure rise and stream functions subjected to given physical boundary conditions are computed. The effects of pertinent parameters like Debye length and Helmholtz-Smoluchowski velocity which characterize the EDL phenomenon and external electric field, coupling number and micropolar parameter which characterize the micropolar fluid behavior, on peristaltic pumping are discussed through the illustrations. The results show that peristaltic pumping may alter by applying external electric fields. This model can be used to design and engineer the peristalsis-lab-on-chip and micro peristaltic syringe pumps for biomedical applications
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