A neuronal relay mediates a nutrient responsive gut/fat body axis regulating energy homeostasis in adult Drosophila

The control of systemic metabolic homeostasis involves complex inter-tissue programs that coordinate energy production, storage, and consumption, to maintain organismal fitness upon environmental challenges. The mechanisms driving such programs are largely unknown. Here, we show that enteroendocrine cells in the adult Drosophila intestine respond to nutrients by secreting the hormone Bursicon α, which signals via its neuronal receptor DLgr2. Bursicon α/DLgr2 regulate energy metabolism through a neuronal relay leading to the restriction of glucagon-like, adipokinetic hormone (AKH) production by the corpora cardiaca and subsequent modulation of AKH receptor signaling within the adipose tissue. Impaired Bursicon α/DLgr2 signaling leads to exacerbated glucose oxidation and depletion of energy stores with consequent reduced organismal resistance to nutrient restrictive conditions. Altogether, our work reveals an intestinal/neuronal/adipose tissue inter-organ communication network that is essential to restrict the use of energy and that may provide insights into the physiopathology of endocrine-regulated metabolic homeostasis

Chemical Stabilization Features Of Ladle Furnace Slag In Ferrous Metallurgy

Nowadays due to the application expansion of secondary steel processing methods, which provide high-degree metal desulfurization, a problem of the ladle furnace slag (or high-calcium refining slag) stabilization arose in the ferrous metallurgy. This slag cannot be stabilized because of its self-disintegrating properties. Keywords: ladle furnace slag, secondary alumina production wastes, slag stabilization, belite, mayenit

Nucleation at finite temperature beyond the superminispace model

The transition from the quantum to the classical regime of the nucleation of the closed Robertson-Walker Universe with spacially homogeneous matter fields is investigated with a perturbation expansion around the sphaleron configuration. A criterion is derived for the occurrence of a first-order type transition, and the related phase diagram for scalar and vector fields is obtained. For scalar fields both the first and second order transitions can occur depending on the shape of the potential barrier. For a vector field, here that of an O(3) nonlinear $\sigma$-model, the transition is seen to be only of the first order.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

Analysis of Collectivism and Egoism Phenomena within the Context of Social Welfare

Comparative benefits provided by the basic social strategies including collectivism and egoism are investigated within the framework of democratic decision-making. In particular, we study the mechanism of growing "snowball" of cooperation.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures. Translated from Russian. Original Russian Text published in Problemy Upravleniya, 2008, No. 4, pp. 30-3

Unit Ladle-Furnace: Slag Forming Conditions And Stabilization

Nowadays almost all smelted steel is processed in "ladle-furnace" (LF), where the steel is processed under refining conditions and brought to the desired temperature and chemical composition. Therefore, large amounts of refining slag are formed. Only in Russia there is about 1.4 million tons of slag exported to dumps annually. This slag cannot be processed by the schemes implemented in the industry, since the slag quickly turns into the tiniest dust during solidification and cooling. Such dust is easily aerated and carried by the wind for long distances; it pollutes soils, dissolves in ground, sedimentary and sewage waters. It also pollutes slag dumps that are suitable for processing for crushed stone. Keywords: ladle furnace slag, EAF slag, chemical composition, phase composition, secondary alumina production wastes, slag stabilizatio

Quasicondensate and superfluid fraction in the 2D charged-boson gas at finite temperature

The Bogoliubov - de Gennes equations are solved for the Coulomb Bose gas describing a fluid of charged bosons at finite temperature. The approach is applicable in the weak coupling regime and the extent of its quantitative usefulness is tested in the three-dimensional fluid, for which diffusion Monte Carlo data are available on the condensate fraction at zero temperature. The one-body density matrix is then evaluated by the same approach for the two-dimensional fluid with e^2/r interactions, to demonstrate the presence of a quasi-condensate from its power-law decay with increasing distance and to evaluate the superfluid fraction as a function of temperature at weak coupling.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Privacy Architectures: Reasoning About Data Minimisation and Integrity

Privacy by design will become a legal obligation in the European Community if the Data Protection Regulation eventually gets adopted. However, taking into account privacy requirements in the design of a system is a challenging task. We propose an approach based on the specification of privacy architectures and focus on a key aspect of privacy, data minimisation, and its tension with integrity requirements. We illustrate our formal framework through a smart metering case study.Comment: appears in STM - 10th International Workshop on Security and Trust Management 8743 (2014

Surface layering of liquids: The role of surface tension

Recent measurements show that the free surfaces of liquid metals and alloys are always layered, regardless of composition and surface tension; a result supported by three decades of simulations and theory. Recent theoretical work claims, however, that at low enough temperatures the free surfaces of all liquids should become layered, unless preempted by bulk freezing. Using x-ray reflectivity and diffuse scattering measurements we show that there is no observable surface-induced layering in water at T=298 K, thus highlighting a fundamental difference between dielectric and metallic liquids. The implications of this result for the question in the title are discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. B. 69 (2004

Kinks in the Presence of Rapidly Varying Perturbations

Dynamics of sine-Gordon kinks in the presence of rapidly varying periodic perturbations of different physical origins is described analytically and numerically. The analytical approach is based on asymptotic expansions, and it allows to derive, in a rigorous way, an effective nonlinear equation for the slowly varying field component in any order of the asymptotic procedure as expansions in the small parameter $\omega^{-1}$, $\omega$ being the frequency of the rapidly varying ac driving force. Three physically important examples of such a dynamics, {\em i.e.}, kinks driven by a direct or parametric ac force, and kinks on rotating and oscillating background, are analysed in detail. It is shown that in the main order of the asymptotic procedure the effective equation for the slowly varying field component is {\em a renormalized sine-Gordon equation} in the case of the direct driving force or rotating (but phase-locked to an external ac force) background, and it is {\em the double sine-Gordon equation} for the parametric driving force. The properties of the kinks described by the renormalized nonlinear equations are analysed, and it is demonstrated analytically and numerically which kinds of physical phenomena may be expected in dealing with the renormalized, rather than the unrenormalized, nonlinear dynamics. In particular, we predict several qualitatively new effects which include, {\em e.g.}, the perturbation-inducedComment: New copy of the paper of the above title to replace the previous one, lost in the midst of the bulletin board. RevTeX 3.

Analytical study of non-linear transport across a semiconductor-metal junction

In this paper we study analytically a one-dimensional model for a semiconductor-metal junction. We study the formation of Tamm states and how they evolve when the semi-infinite semiconductor and metal are coupled together. The non-linear current, as a function of the bias voltage, is studied using the non-equilibrium Green's function method and the density matrix of the interface is given. The electronic occupation of the sites defining the interface has strong non-linearities as function of the bias voltage due to strong resonances present in the Green's functions of the junction sites. The surface Green's function is computed analytically by solving a quadratic matrix equation, which does not require adding a small imaginary constant to the energy. The wave function for the surface states is given