1,335 research outputs found
Detection of Naegleria Species in Environmental Samples from Peninsular Malaysia
In Malaysia, researchers and medical practitioners are unfamiliar with Naegleria infections. Thus little is known about the existence of pathogenic Naegleria fowleri, and the resultant primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) is seldom included in the differential diagnosis of central nervous system infections. This study was conducted to detect the presence of Naegleria species in various environmental samples.A total of 41 Naegleria-like isolates were isolated from water and dust samples. All these isolates were subjected to PCR using two primer sets designed from the ITS1-ITS2 regions. The N. fowleri species-specific primer set failed to produce the expected amplicon. The Naegleria genus-specific primers produced amplicons of 408 bp (35), 450 bp (2), 457 bp (2) or 381 bp (2) from all 41 isolates isolated from aquatic (33) and dust (8) samples. Analysis of the sequences from 10 representative isolates revealed that amplicons with fragments 408, 450 and 457 bp showed homology with non-pathogenic Naegleria species, and 381 bp showed homology with Vahlkampfia species. These results concurred with the morphological observation that all 39 isolates which exhibited flagella were Naegleria, while 2 isolates (AC7, JN034055 and AC8, JN034056) that did not exhibit flagella were Vahlkampfia species.To date, pathogenic species of N. fowleri have not been isolated from Malaysia. All 39 isolates that produced amplicons (408, 450 and 457 bp) from the genus-specific primers were identified as being similar to nonpathogenic Naegleria. Amplicon 408 bp from 5 representative isolates showed 100% and 99.7% identity to Naegleria philippinensis isolate RJTM (AM167890) and is thus believed to be the most common species in our environment. Amplicons 450 bp and 457 bp were respectively believed to be from 2 new species of Naegleria, since representative isolates showed lower homology and had a longer base pair length when compared to the reference species in the Genbank, Naegleria schusteri (AJ566626) and Naegleria laresi (AJ566630), respectively
Fermionic Mach-Zehnder interferometer subject to a quantum bath
We study fermions in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, subject to a
quantum-mechanical environment leading to inelastic scattering, decoherence,
renormalization effects, and time-dependent conductance fluctuations. Both the
loss of interference contrast as well as the shot noise are calculated, using
equations of motion and leading order perturbation theory. The full dependence
of the shot-noise correction on setup parameters, voltage, temperature and the
bath spectrum is presented. We find an interesting contribution due to
correlations between the fluctuating renormalized phase shift and the output
current, discuss the limiting behaviours at low and high voltages, and compare
with simpler models of dephasing.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Weak localization of light by cold atoms: the impact of quantum internal structure
Since the work of Anderson on localization, interference effects for the
propagation of a wave in the presence of disorder have been extensively
studied, as exemplified in coherent backscattering (CBS) of light. In the
multiple scattering of light by a disordered sample of thermal atoms,
interference effects are usually washed out by the fast atomic motion. This is
no longer true for cold atoms where CBS has recently been observed. However,
the internal structure of the atoms strongly influences the interference
properties. In this paper, we consider light scattering by an atomic dipole
transition with arbitrary degeneracy and study its impact on coherent
backscattering. We show that the interference contrast is strongly reduced.
Assuming a uniform statistical distribution over internal degrees of freedom,
we compute analytically the single and double scattering contributions to the
intensity in the weak localization regime. The so-called ladder and crossed
diagrams are generalized to the case of atoms and permit to calculate
enhancement factors and backscattering intensity profiles for polarized light
and any closed atomic dipole transition.Comment: 22 pages Revtex, 9 figures, to appear in PR
Kirchhoff's Rule for Quantum Wires
In this article we formulate and discuss one particle quantum scattering
theory on an arbitrary finite graph with open ends and where we define the
Hamiltonian to be (minus) the Laplace operator with general boundary conditions
at the vertices. This results in a scattering theory with channels. The
corresponding on-shell S-matrix formed by the reflection and transmission
amplitudes for incoming plane waves of energy is explicitly given in
terms of the boundary conditions and the lengths of the internal lines. It is
shown to be unitary, which may be viewed as the quantum version of Kirchhoff's
law. We exhibit covariance and symmetry properties. It is symmetric if the
boundary conditions are real. Also there is a duality transformation on the set
of boundary conditions and the lengths of the internal lines such that the low
energy behaviour of one theory gives the high energy behaviour of the
transformed theory. Finally we provide a composition rule by which the on-shell
S-matrix of a graph is factorizable in terms of the S-matrices of its
subgraphs. All proofs only use known facts from the theory of self-adjoint
extensions, standard linear algebra, complex function theory and elementary
arguments from the theory of Hermitean symplectic forms.Comment: 40 page
Giant vortex state in perforated aluminum microsquares
We investigate the nucleation of superconductivity in a uniform perpendicular
magnetic field H in aluminum microsquares containing a few (2 and 4) submicron
holes (antidots). The normal/superconducting phase boundary T_c(H) of these
structures shows a quite different behavior in low and high fields. In the low
magnetic field regime fluxoid quantization around each antidot leads to
oscillations in T_c(H), expected from the specific sample geometry, and
reminiscent of the network behavior. In high magnetic fields, the T_c(H)
boundaries of the perforated and a reference non-perforated microsquare reveal
cusps at the same values of Phi/Phi_0 (where Phi is the applied flux threading
the total square area and Phi_0 is the superconducting flux quantum), while the
background on T_c(H) becomes quasi-linear, indicating that a giant vortex state
is established. The influence of the actual geometries on T_c(H) is analyzed in
the framework of the linearized Ginzburg-Landau theory.Comment: 14 pages, 6 PS figures, RevTex, accepted for publication in Phys.
Rev.
Dutch Dialogues with Afrikaners: The Netherlands and the Cultural Boycott Against the Apartheid Regime in the 1980s
Second Generation Leptoquark Search in p\bar{p} Collisions at = 1.8 TeV
We report on a search for second generation leptoquarks with the D\O\
detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider at = 1.8 TeV.
This search is based on 12.7 pb of data. Second generation leptoquarks
are assumed to be produced in pairs and to decay into a muon and quark with
branching ratio or to neutrino and quark with branching ratio
. We obtain cross section times branching ratio limits as a function
of leptoquark mass and set a lower limit on the leptoquark mass of 111
GeV/c for and 89 GeV/c for at the 95%\
confidence level.Comment: 18 pages, FERMILAB-PUB-95/185-
Measurement of the Boson Mass
A measurement of the mass of the boson is presented based on a sample of
5982 decays observed in collisions at
= 1.8~TeV with the D\O\ detector during the 1992--1993 run. From a
fit to the transverse mass spectrum, combined with measurements of the
boson mass, the boson mass is measured to be .Comment: 12 pages, LaTex, style Revtex, including 3 postscript figures
(submitted to PRL
A Quasi-Model-Independent Search for New Physics at Large Transverse Momentum
We apply a quasi-model-independent strategy ("Sleuth") to search for new high
p_T physics in approximately 100 pb^-1 of ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV
collected by the DZero experiment during 1992-1996 at the Fermilab Tevatron.
Over thirty-two e mu X, W+jets-like, Z+jets-like, and 3(lepton/photon)X
exclusive final states are systematically analyzed for hints of physics beyond
the standard model. Simultaneous sensitivity to a variety of models predicting
new phenomena at the electroweak scale is demonstrated by testing the method on
a particular signature in each set of final states. No evidence of new high p_T
physics is observed in the course of this search, and we find that 89% of an
ensemble of hypothetical similar experimental runs would have produced a final
state with a candidate signal more interesting than the most interesting
observed in these data.Comment: 28 pages, 17 figures. Submitted to Physical Review
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