58,257 research outputs found
Anomalous Rashba spin-orbit interaction in InAs/GaSb quantum wells
We investigate theoretically the Rashba spin-orbit interaction in InAs/GaSb
quantum wells(QWs). We find that the Rashba spin-splitting (RSS) depends
sensitively on the thickness of the InAs layer. The RSS exhibits nonlinear
behavior for narrow InAs/GaSb QWs and the oscillating feature for wide
InAs/GaSb QWs. The nonlinear and oscillating behaviors arise from the weakened
and enhanced interband coupling. The RSS also show asymmetric features respect
to the direction of the external electric field.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures. Appl. Phys. Lett. (in press
Signal quality measures for unsupervised blood pressure measurement
Accurate systolic and diastolic pressure estimation, using automated blood pressure measurement, is difficult to achieve when the transduced signals are contaminated with noise or interference, such as movement artifact. This study presents an algorithm for automated signal quality assessment in blood pressure measurement by determining the feasibility of accurately detecting systolic and diastolic pressures when corrupted with various levels of movement artifact. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared to a manually annotated reference scoring (RS). Based on visual representations and audible playback of Korotkoff sounds, the creation of the RS involved two experts identifying sections of the recorded sounds and annotating sections of noise contamination. The experts determined the systolic and diastolic pressure in 100 recorded Korotkoff sound recordings, using a simultaneous electrocardiograph as a reference signal. The recorded Korotkoff sounds were acquired from 25 healthy subjects (16 men and 9 women) with a total of four measurements per subject. Two of these measurements contained purposely induced noise artifact caused by subject movement. Morphological changes in the cuff pressure signal and the width of the Korotkoff pulse were extracted features which were believed to be correlated with the noise presence in the recorded Korotkoff sounds. Verification of reliable Korotkoff pulses was also performed using extracted features from the oscillometric waveform as recorded from the inflatable cuff. The time between an identified noise section and a verified Korotkoff pulse was the key feature used to determine the validity of possible systolic and diastolic pressures in noise contaminated Korotkoff sounds. The performance of the algorithm was assessed based on the ability to: verify if a signal was contaminated with any noise; the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of this noise classification, and the systolic and diastolic pressure differences between the result obtained from the algorithm and the RS. 90% of the actual noise contaminated signals were correctly identified, and a sample-wise accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 97.0%, 80.61% and 98.16%, respectively, were obtained from 100 pooled signals. The mean systolic and diastolic differences were 0.37 ± 3.31 and 3.10 ± 5.46 mmHg, respectively, when the artifact detection algorithm was utilized, with the algorithm correctly determined if the signal was clean enough to attempt an estimation of systolic or diastolic pressures in 93% of blood pressure measurements
Spin-dependent tunneling through a symmetric semiconductor barrier: the Dresselhaus effect
Spin-dependent tunneling through a symmetric semiconductor barrier is studied
including the k^3 Dresselhaus effect. The spin-dependent transmission of
electron can be obtained analytically. By comparing with previous work(Phys.
Rev. B 67. R201304 (2003) and Phys. Rev. Lett. 93. 056601 (2004)), it is shown
that the spin polarization and interface current are changed significantly by
including the off-diagonal elements in the current operator, and can be
enhanced considerably by the Dresselhaus effect in the contact regions.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, to appear in PR
General analysis of self-dual solutions for the Einstein-Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory in (1+2) dimensions
The solutions of the Einstein-Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory are studied in
(1+2) dimensions with the self-duality condition imposed on the Maxwell field.
We give a closed form of the general solution which is determined by a single
function having the physical meaning of the quasilocal angular momentum of the
solution. This function completely determines the geometry of spacetime, also
providing the direct computation of the conserved total mass and angular
momentum of the configurations.Comment: 3 pages, REVTEX file, no figure
Effects of Electromagnetic Field on the Dynamical Instability of Cylindrical Collapse
The objective of this paper is to discuss the dynamical instability in the
context of Newtonian and post Newtonian regimes. For this purpose, we consider
non-viscous heat conducting charged isotropic fluid as a collapsing matter with
cylindrical symmetry. Darmois junction conditions are formulated. The
perturbation scheme is applied to investigate the influence of dissipation and
electromagnetic field on the dynamical instability. We conclude that the
adiabatic index has smaller value for such a fluid in cylindrically
symmetric than isotropic sphere
Quantum field and uniformly accelerated oscillator
We present an exact treatment of the influences on a quantum scalar field in
its Minkowski vacuum state induced by coupling of the field to a uniformly
accelerated harmonic oscillator. We show that there are no radiation from the
oscillator in the point of view of a uniformly accelerating observer. On the
other hand, there are radiations in the point of view of an inertial observer.
It is shown that Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) like correlations of Rindler
particles in Minkowski vacuum states are modified by a phase factor in front of
the momentum-symmetric Rindler operators. The exact quantization of a
time-dependent oscillator coupled to a massless scalar field was given.Comment: 28 pages, LaTe
Loss of Endometrial Plasticity in Recurrent Pregnancy Loss
© 2015 AlphaMed Press.Menstruation drives cyclic activation of endometrial progenitor cells, tissue regeneration, and maturation of stromal cells, which differentiate into specialized decidual cells prior to and during pregnancy. Aberrant responsiveness of human endometrial stromal cells (HESCs) to deciduogenic cues is strongly associated with recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL), suggesting a defect in cellular maturation. MeDIP-seq analysis of HESCs did not reveal gross perturbations in CpG methylation in RPL cultures, although quantitative differences were observed in or near genes that are frequently deregulated in vivo. However, RPL was associated with a marked reduction in methylation of defined CA-rich motifs located throughout the genome but enriched near telomeres. Non-CpG methylation is a hallmark of cellular multipotency. Congruently, we demonstrate that RPL is associated with a deficiency in endometrial clonogenic cell populations. Loss of epigenetic stemness features also correlated with intragenic CpG hypomethylation and reduced expression of HMGB2, coding high mobility group protein 2. We show that knockdown of this sequence-independent chromatin protein in HESCs promotes senescence and impairs decidualization, exemplified by blunted time-dependent secretome changes. Our findings indicate that stem cell deficiency and accelerated stromal senescence limit the differentiation capacity of the endometrium and predispose for pregnancy failure. Stem Cells 2016;34:346-356 Recurrent pregnancy loss is caused by endometrial stem cell deficiency, triggering heightened tissue senescence and impaired decidualization
Energetic Components of Cooperative Protein Folding
A new lattice protein model with a four-helix bundle ground state is analyzed
by a parameter-space Monte Carlo histogram technique to evaluate the effects of
an extensive variety of model potentials on folding thermodynamics. Cooperative
helical formation and contact energies based on a 5-letter alphabet are found
to be insufficient to satisfy calorimetric and other experimental criteria for
two-state folding. Such proteinlike behaviors are predicted, however, by models
with polypeptide-like local conformational restrictions and
environment-dependent hydrogen bonding-like interactions.Comment: 11 pages, 4 postscripts figures, Phys. Rev. Lett. (in press
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