639 research outputs found
On the origin and application of the Bruggeman Correlation for analysing transport phenomena in electrochemical systems
The widely used Bruggeman equations correlate tortuosity factors of porous media with their porosity. Finding diverse application from optics to bubble formation, it received considerable attention in fuel cell and battery research, recently. The ability to estimate tortuous mass transport resistance based on porosity alone is attractive, because direct access to the tortuosity factors is notoriously difficult. The correlation, however, has limitations, which are not widely appreciated owing to the limited accessibility of the original manuscript. We retrace Bruggemans derivation, together with its initial assumptions, and comment on validity and limitations apparent from the original work to offer some guidance on its use.<br/
Von Willebrand factor is a major determinant of ADAMTS-13 decrease during mouse sepsis induced by cecum ligation and puncture
Summary. Background: During sepsis, von Willebrand factor (VWF) is abundantly secreted; the main mechanism regulating its size involves specific proteolysis by the metalloprotease ADAMTS-13. Objectives: To determine whether ADAMTS-13 consumption due to its binding to, and/or cleavage, of VWF contributes to its decrease during sepsis and whether abrogating or enhancing ADAMTS-13 activity influences sepsis outcome. Methods: ADAMTS-13 activity was evaluated in a model of sepsis induced by cecum ligature and puncture (CLP) in wild-type and Vwf−/− mice. Sepsis outcome was studied in those mice and in Adamts-13−/− mice. Finally, survival was studied in wild-type mice injected hydrodynamically with the human ADAMTS-13 gene. Results: In wild-type mice, CLP-induced sepsis elicited a significant ADAMTS-13 decrease, and a strong negative correlation existed between VWF and ADAMTS-13. In Vwf−/− mice, CLP also induced severe sepsis, but ADAMTS-13 was not significantly diminished. Notably, Vwf−/− mice lived significantly longer than wild-type mice. In contrast, Adamts-13−/− mice and wild-type mice were comparable with regard to thrombocytopenia, VWF concentrations, absence of thrombi, and survival. Hydrodynamic hADAMTS-13 gene transfer with the pLIVE expression vector resulted in high and stable ADAMTS13 activity in CLP mice; however, no impact on survival was observed. Conclusions: VWF secretion is a major determinant of ADAMTS-13 decrease in the CLP model, and plays an important role in sepsis-induced mortality, but the complete absence of its regulating protease, ADAMTS-13, had no detectable impact in this sepsis model. Furthermore, increasing ADAMTS-13 activity had no impact on survival
Measuring the Relative Strong Phase in and Decays
In a recently suggested method for measuring the weak phase in
decays, the relative strong phase in and decays (equivalently, in and \od \to K^{*+} K^-) plays a role. It is shown how a study of
the Dalitz plot in can yield information on this phase,
and the size of the data sample which would give a useful measurement is
estimated.Comment: 13 pages, latex, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D. Appendix and
some text on additional resonant contributions adde
Noise Can Reduce Disorder in Chaotic Dynamics
We evoke the idea of representation of the chaotic attractor by the set of
unstable periodic orbits and disclose a novel noise-induced ordering
phenomenon. For long unstable periodic orbits forming the strange attractor the
weights (or natural measure) is generally highly inhomogeneous over the set,
either diminishing or enhancing the contribution of these orbits into system
dynamics. We show analytically and numerically a weak noise to reduce this
inhomogeneity and, additionally to obvious perturbing impact, make a
regularizing influence on the chaotic dynamics. This universal effect is rooted
into the nature of deterministic chaos.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
Defect structures and torque on an elongated colloidal particle immersed in a liquid crystal host
Combining molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulation we study defect
structures around an elongated colloidal particle embedded in a nematic liquid
crystal host. By studying nematic ordering near the particle and the
disclination core region we are able to examine the defect core structure and
the difference between two simulation techniques. In addition, we also study
the torque on a particle tilted with respect to the director, and modification
of this torque when the particle is close to the cell wall
The Steady State Fluctuation Relation for the Dissipation Function
We give a proof of transient fluctuation relations for the entropy production
(dissipation function) in nonequilibrium systems, which is valid for most time
reversible dynamics. We then consider the conditions under which a transient
fluctuation relation yields a steady state fluctuation relation for driven
nonequilibrium systems whose transients relax, producing a unique
nonequilibrium steady state. Although the necessary and sufficient conditions
for the production of a unique nonequilibrium steady state are unknown, if such
a steady state exists, the generation of the steady state fluctuation relation
from the transient relation is shown to be very general. It is essentially a
consequence of time reversibility and of a form of decay of correlations in the
dissipation, which is needed also for, e.g., the existence of transport
coefficients. Because of this generality the resulting steady state fluctuation
relation has the same degree of robustness as do equilibrium thermodynamic
equalities. The steady state fluctuation relation for the dissipation stands in
contrast with the one for the phase space compression factor, whose convergence
is problematic, for systems close to equilibrium. We examine some model
dynamics that have been considered previously, and show how they are described
in the context of this work.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figur
Evaluation of Hungarian Wines for Resveratrol by Overpressured Layer Chromatography
A method, including solid phase extraction sample preparation, overpressured layer chromatographic separation and subsequent densitometric evaluation, was developed for measurement of total resveratrol (cis- and trans-isomers) content of wine. The amount of resveratrol was determined in wine samples from different winemaking regions of Hungary. The total resveratrol was high in Hungarian red wines (3.6–11 mg/L), and much lower in white ones (0.04–1.5 mg/L)
Local-feature-based similarity measure for stochastic resonance in visual perception of spatially structured images
For images, stochastic resonance or useful-noise effects have previously been assessed with low-level pixel-based information measures. Such measures are not sensitive to coherent spatial structures usually existing in images. As a result, we show that such measures are not sufficient to properly account for stochastic resonance occurring in visual perception. We introduce higher-level similarity measures, inspired from visual perception, and based on local feature descriptors of scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) type. We demonstrate that such SIFT-based measures allow for an assessment of stochastic resonance that matches the visual perception of images with spatial structures. Constructive action of noise is registered in this way with both additive noise and multiplicative speckle noise. Speckle noise, with its grainy appearance, is particularly prone to introducing spurious spatial structures in images, and the stochastic resonance visually perceived and quantitatively assessed with SIFT-based measures is specially examined in this context
Observation of Orbitally Excited B_s Mesons
We report the first observation of two narrow resonances consistent with
states of orbitally excited (L=1) B_s mesons using 1 fb^{-1} of ppbar
collisions at sqrt{s} = 1.96 TeV collected with the CDF II detector at the
Fermilab Tevatron. We use two-body decays into K^- and B^+ mesons reconstructed
as B^+ \to J/\psi K^+, J/\psi \to \mu^+ \mu^- or B^+ \to \bar{D}^0 \pi^+,
\bar{D}^0 \to K^+ \pi^-. We deduce the masses of the two states to be m(B_{s1})
= 5829.4 +- 0.7 MeV/c^2 and m(B_{s2}^*) = 5839.7 +- 0.7 MeV/c^2.Comment: Version accepted and published by Phys. Rev. Let
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