2,629 research outputs found
Arrays of Josephson junctions between unconventional superconductors
We study large arrays of mesoscopic junctions between gapless superconductors
where the tunneling processes of both, particle-hole and Cooper, pairs give
rise to a strongly retarded effective action which, contrary to the standard
case, can not be readily characterized in terms of a local Josephson energy.
This complexity is expected to arise in, e.g., the grain boundary and c-axis
junctions in layered high-T_c superconductors. A new representation for
describing collective phenomena in this system is introduced, and its phase
diagram is discussed, alongside the electrical conductivity.Comment: Latex, 4+ pages, 1 figur
Bleomycin increases neutrophil adhesion to human vascular endothelial cells independently of upregulation of ICAM-1 and E-selectin
© 2016 Taylor & Francis. Aim of the Study: Bleomycin-induced lung disease is a serious complication of therapy characterized by alveolar injury, cytokine release, inflammatory cell recruitment, and eventually pulmonary fibrosis. The mechanisms underlying bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis may be relevant to other progressive scarring diseases of the lungs. Pulmonary vascular endothelial cells are critically involved in immune cell extravasation at sites of injury through adhesion molecule expression and cytokine release. We sought to determine the effects of bleomycin on adhesion molecule expression and cytokine release by pulmonary vascular endothelial cells, and their functional relevance to inflammatory cell recruitment. Materials and Methods: The effects of pharmacologically relevant concentrations of bleomycin on adhesion molecule expression and cytokine release by human vascular endothelial cells in vitro were studied by flow cytometry, quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. A flow chamber model was used to assess the functional consequences on adhesion of flowing human neutrophils to endothelial cell monolayers. Results: Bleomycin increased intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1; CD54), vascular cell adhesion molecule (VCAM-1; CD106), and E-selectin (CD62E) expression, and increased monocyte chemoattractant protein (MCP-1) and interleukin (IL-8) release by endothelial cells. Increases in protein expression were accompanied by increased mRNA transcription. In contrast, there was no direct effect of bleomycin on the profibrotic cytokines transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β), platelet-derived growth factor-BB (PDGF-BB), or endothelin-1. Under flow conditions, endothelial cells exposed to bleomycin supported increased neutrophil adhesion which was independent of ICAM-1 or E-selectin. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that bleomycin promotes endothelial-mediated inflammation and neutrophil adhesion. These mechanisms may contribute to the development of pulmonary fibrosis by supporting immune cell recruitment in the lungs
Evaluation of be-38 percent al alloy final report, 27 jun. 1964 - 28 feb. 1965
Mechanical properties, microstructural features, and general metallurgical quality of beryllium- aluminum allo
Multi-core job submission and grid resource scheduling for ATLAS AthenaMP
AthenaMP is the multi-core implementation of the ATLAS software framework and allows the efficient sharing of memory pages between multiple threads of execution. This has now been validated for production and delivers a significant reduction on the overall application memory footprint with negligible CPU overhead. Before AthenaMP can be routinely run on the LHC Computing Grid it must be determined how the computing resources available to ATLAS can best exploit the notable improvements delivered by switching to this multi-process model. A study into the effectiveness and scalability of AthenaMP in a production environment will be presented. Best practices for configuring the main LRMS implementations currently used by grid sites will be identified in the context of multi-core scheduling optimisation
Thermodynamic metrics and optimal paths
A fundamental problem in modern thermodynamics is how a molecular-scale
machine performs useful work, while operating away from thermal equilibrium
without excessive dissipation. To this end, we derive a friction tensor that
induces a Riemannian manifold on the space of thermodynamic states. Within the
linear-response regime, this metric structure controls the dissipation of
finite-time transformations, and bestows optimal protocols with many useful
properties. We discuss the connection to the existing thermodynamic length
formalism, and demonstrate the utility of this metric by solving for optimal
control parameter protocols in a simple nonequilibrium model.Comment: 5 page
Measurements of a low temperature mechanical dissipation peak in a single layer of Ta2O5 doped with TiO2
Thermal noise arising from mechanical dissipation in oxide coatings is a
major limitation to many precision measurement systems, including optical
frequency standards, high resolution optical spectroscopy and interferometric
gravity wave detectors. Presented here are measurements of dissipation as a
function of temperature between 7 K and 290 K in ion-beam sputtered Ta2O5 doped
with TiO2, showing a loss peak at 20 K. Analysis of the peak provides the first
evidence of the source of dissipation in doped Ta2O5 coatings, leading to
possibilities for the reduction of thermal noise effects
Apparatus for dimensional characterization of fused silica fibers for the suspensions of advanced gravitational wave detectors
Detection of gravitational waves from astrophysical sources remains one of the most challenging problems faced by experimental physicists. A significant limit to the sensitivity of future long-baseline interferometric gravitational wave detectors is thermal displacement noise of the test mass mirrors and their suspensions. Suspension thermal noise results from mechanical dissipation in the fused silica suspension fibers suspending the test mass mirrors and is therefore an important noise source at operating frequencies between ∼10 and 30 Hz. This dissipation occurs due to a combination of thermoelastic damping, surface and bulk losses. Its effects can be reduced by optimizing the thermoelastic and surface loss, and these parameters are a function of the cross sectional dimensions of the fiber along its length. This paper presents a new apparatus capable of high resolution measurements of the cross sectional dimensions of suspension fibers of both rectangular and circular cross section, suitable for use in advanced detector mirror suspensions
Thermal noise in interferometric gravitational wave detectors due to dielectric optical coatings
We report on thermal noise from the internal friction of dielectric coatings
made from alternating layers of Ta2O5 and SiO2 deposited on fused silica
substrates. We present calculations of the thermal noise in gravitational wave
interferometers due to optical coatings, when the material properties of the
coating are different from those of the substrate and the mechanical loss angle
in the coating is anisotropic. The loss angle in the coatings for strains
parallel to the substrate surface was determined from ringdown experiments. We
measured the mechanical quality factor of three fused silica samples with
coatings deposited on them. The loss angle of the coating material for strains
parallel to the coated surface was found to be (4.2 +- 0.3)*10^(-4) for
coatings deposited on commercially polished slides and (1.0 +- 0.3)*10^{-4} for
a coating deposited on a superpolished disk. Using these numbers, we estimate
the effect of coatings on thermal noise in the initial LIGO and advanced LIGO
interferometers. We also find that the corresponding prediction for thermal
noise in the 40 m LIGO prototype at Caltech is consistent with the noise data.
These results are complemented by results for a different type of coating,
presented in a companion paper.Comment: Submitted to LSC (internal) review Sept. 20, 2001. To be submitted to
Phys. Lett.
Entanglement propagation through spin chains in the presence of a staggered magnetic field
We study the dynamics of entanglement in the XY spin chain subject to a staggered magnetic field and contrast it to the previously studied uniform field case. We find that, depending on parameter values, a staggered field can provide better conditions for a perfect entanglement transfer, while even a modest amount of exchange anisotropy appears to have a strong detrimental effect. We also study interactions between different waves of entanglement and assess the possibility of simultaneous transmission of multiple bits of quantum information. Comment: Latex, 4+ page
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