Droplet minimizers for the Gates-Lebowitz-Penrose free energy functional

We study the structure of the constrained minimizers of the Gates-Lebowitz-Penrose free-energy functional ${\mathcal F}_{\rm GLP}(m)$, non-local functional of a density field $m(x)$, $x\in {\mathcal T}_L$, a $d$-dimensional torus of side length $L$. At low temperatures, ${\mathcal F}_{\rm GLP}$ is not convex, and has two distinct global minimizers, corresponding to two equilibrium states. Here we constrain the average density L^{-d}\int_{{\cal T}_L}m(x)\dd x to be a fixed value $n$ between the densities in the two equilibrium states, but close to the low density equilibrium value. In this case, a "droplet" of the high density phase may or may not form in a background of the low density phase, depending on the values $n$ and $L$. We determine the critical density for droplet formation, and the nature of the droplet, as a function of $n$ and $L$. The relation between the free energy and the large deviations functional for a particle model with long-range Kac potentials, proven in some cases, and expected to be true in general, then provides information on the structure of typical microscopic configurations of the Gibbs measure when the range of the Kac potential is large enough

Quality traits of Procambarus clarkii (girard) related to sex and refrigerated storage

The red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii, Girard) is the most widespread alien species in Europe. Imported from Louisiana to southern Spain in 1973, where at present it is reared in crayfish farm and also diffused in the wild, it was introduced into Italy in the '80s and is now well established in natural environments of northern and central Italy. Naturalization of this alien species poses risks for aquatic ecosystems and its use as food may be a way to limit its spreading. The aim of this study was to analyse the morphological, mercantile and biochemical characteristics of male and female specimens of Procambarus clarkii and to evaluate changes in qualitative traits during refrigerated storage. Specimens of red swamp crayfish collected in a river, after a rearing period of 85 days in tanks, were harvested, killed by hypothermia and refrigerated (1°C). Male (n=31) and female (n=26) specimens were separated and measured for total body and abdomen length, 1 (n=10), 3 (n=16), 8 (n=16) and 10 days (n=15) after harvesting. They were weighed, sectioned to separate claws and tails (shell-on), which were weighed individually and their colour parameters (lightness, L*; chromaticity indexes, a* and b*) measured in dorsal and ventral sites. A pooled sample consisting of tail muscle of 2-3 specimens having the same storage times was homogenized and analysed for total lipids, qualitative and quantitative fatty acid composition and malondialdehyde (MDA). The other tails (shell-on) were steamed, the exoskeleton removed and abdominal muscles (shell-off tails) analysed for colour parameters in dorsal and ventral sites, and for free water (by compression method). Data was analysed by GLM using the SAS Package, with sex, storage time and relative interaction (except for data of chemical analysis) as fixed effects. Females and males differed in total (p<0.05) and abdominal (p<0.01) length (8.65 vs 8.27cm and 4.32 vs 4.04cm, respectively) and in body weight (corrected for cheliped weight, due their lack in some cases; 16.35 vs 13.89g; p<0.05), however the cooked-meat yield of shell-on tails was similar (46.53 vs 42.93%; p=0.19). Regarding colour parameters, the two sexes only differed in L*, which was significantly greater in males in the different sites of measurement, except the ventral site of raw shell-on tails. Males and females showed a similar water holding capacity of abdominal meat (mean 10.78±6.33cm2). No differences between the sexes were recorded for total lipids (mean 1.05±0.14%), MDA content and fatty acid profile (means SFA: 22.16%, MUFA: 28.40%, PUFAn6: 20.39%; PUFAn3: 28.80%; EPA: 18.24%; DHA: 7.17%). During refrigerated storage, a significant decrease in water holding capacity of muscle (free water increasing from 14.07 to 26.15cm2 on days 1 and 10, respectively; p<0.001) and in cooked-meat yield (from 50.92 to 39.11% on days 1 and 10, respectively; p<0.01) and sharp changes in cooked tail muscle colour parameters were noticed. The latter body part showed a significant decrease (p<0.001) in a* and b* at the dorsal site and in L* at the ventral site (77.74 and 49.14 on days 1 and 10, respectively) with increasing storage. During the refrigerated storage of the whole crayfish the changes recorded for the examined parameters indicate the quality decay, particularly after the 3rd day

A phenomenological investigation of the experience of taking part in 'Extreme Sports'

This article is concerned with what it may mean to individuals to engage in practices that are physically challenging and risky. The article questions the assumptions that psychological health is commensurate with maintaining physical safety, and that risking one's health and physical safety is necessarily a sign of psychopathology. The research was based upon semi-structured interviews with eight extreme sport practitioners. The interviews were analysed using Colaizzi's version of the phenomenological method. The article explicates the themes identified in the analysis, and discusses their implications for health psychology theory and practice

Overweight and obese patients with nickel allergy have a worse metabolic profile compared to weight matched non-allergic individuals

A lack of balance between energy intake and expenditure due to overeating or reduced physical activity does not seem to explain entirely the obesity epidemic we are facing, and further factors are therefore being evaluated. Nickel (Ni) is a ubiquitous heavy metal implied in several health conditions. Regarding this, the European Food Safety Authority has recently released an alert on the possible deleterious effects of dietary Ni on human health given the current levels of Ni dietary intake in some countries. Pre-clinical studies have also suggested its role as an endocrine disruptor and have linked its exposure to energy metabolism and glucose homeostasis dysregulation. Ni allergy is common in the general population, but preliminary data suggest it being even more widespread among overweight patients. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study has been to evaluate the presence of Ni allergy and its association with the metabolic and endocrine profile in overweight and obese individuals. METHODS: We have evaluated 1128 consecutive overweight and obese outpatients. 784 were suspected of being allergic to Ni and 666 were assessed for it. Presence of Ni allergy and correlation with body mass index (BMI), body composition, metabolic parameters and hormonal levels were evaluated. RESULTS: We report that Ni allergy is more frequent in presence of weight excess and is associated with worse metabolic parameters and impaired Growth Hormone secretion. CONCLUSIONS: We confirm that Ni allergy is more common in obese patients, and we report for the first time its association with worse metabolic parameters and impaired function of the GH-IGF1 axis in human subjects

The colored Hanbury Brown--Twiss effect

The Hanbury Brown--Twiss effect is one of the celebrated phenomenologies of modern physics that accommodates equally well classical (interferences of waves) and quantum (correlations between indistinguishable particles) interpretations. The effect was discovered in the late thirties with a basic observation of Hanbury Brown that radio-pulses from two distinct antennas generate signals on the oscilloscope that wiggle similarly to the naked eye. When Hanbury Brown and his mathematician colleague Twiss took the obvious step to propose bringing the effect in the optical range, they met with considerable opposition as single-photon interferences were deemed impossible. The Hanbury Brown--Twiss effect is nowadays universally accepted and, being so fundamental, embodies many subtleties of our understanding of the wave/particle dual nature of light. Thanks to a novel experimental technique, we report here a generalized version of the Hanbury Brown--Twiss effect to include the frequency of the detected light, or, from the particle point of view, the energy of the detected photons. In addition to the known tendencies of indistinguishable photons to arrive together on the detector, we find that photons of different colors present the opposite characteristic of avoiding each others. We postulate that fermions can be similarly brought to exhibit positive (boson-like) correlations by frequency filtering.Comment: 18 pages, includes supplementary material of the derivation

Lower bounds on the blow-up rate of the axisymmetric Navier-Stokes equations II

Consider axisymmetric strong solutions of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in $\R^3$ with non-trivial swirl. Let $z$ denote the axis of symmetry and $r$ measure the distance to the z-axis. Suppose the solution satisfies either $|v (x,t)| \le C_*{|t|^{-1/2}}$ or, for some \e > 0, $|v (x,t)| \le C_* r^{-1+\epsilon} |t|^{-\epsilon /2}$ for $-T_0\le t < 0$ and $0<C_*<\infty$ allowed to be large. We prove that $v$ is regular at time zero.Comment: More explanations and a new appendi

Doing it differently: Engaging interview participants with imaginative variation

Imaginative variation was identified by Husserl (1936/1970) as a phenomenological technique for the purpose of elucidating the manner in which phenomena appear to consciousness. Briefly, by engaging in the phenomenological reduction and using imaginative variation, phenomenologists are able to describe the experience of consciousness, having stepped outside of the natural attitude through the epochē. Imaginative variation is a stage aimed at explicating the structures of experience, and is best described as a mental experiment. Features of the experience are imaginatively altered in order to view the phenomenon under investigation from varying perspectives. Husserl argued that this process will reveal the essences of an experience, as only those aspects that are invariant to the experience of the phenomenon will not be able to change through the variation. Often in qualitative research interviews, participants struggle to articulate or verbalise their experiences. The purpose of this article is to detail a radical and novel way of using imaginative variation with interview participants, by asking the participants to engage with imaginative variation, in order to produce a rich and insightful experiential account of a phenomenon. We will discuss how the first author successfully used imaginative variation in this way in her study of the erotic experience of bondage, discipline, dominance & submission, and sadism & masochism (BDSM), before considering the usefulness of this technique when applied to areas of study beyond sexuality

The Transcriptome of SH-SY5Y at Single-Cell Resolution: A CITE-Seq Data Analysis Workflow

Cellular Indexing of Transcriptomes and Epitopes by Sequencing (CITE-seq) is a recently established multimodal single cell analysis technique combining the immunophenotyping capabilities of antibody labeling and cell sorting with the resolution of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). By simply adding a 12-bp nucleotide barcode to antibodies (cell hashing), CITE-seq can be used to sequence antibody-bound tags alongside the cellular mRNA, thus reducing costs of scRNA-seq by performing it at the same time on multiple barcoded samples in a single run. Here, we illustrate an ideal CITE-seq data analysis workflow by characterizing the transcriptome of SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cell line, a widely used model to study neuronal function and differentiation. We obtained transcriptomes from a total of 2879 single cells, measuring an average of 1600 genes/cell. Along with standard scRNA-seq data handling procedures, such as quality checks and cell filtering procedures, we performed exploratory analyses to identify most stable genes to be possibly used as reference housekeeping genes in qPCR experiments. We also illustrate how to use some popular R packages to investigate cell heterogeneity in scRNA-seq data, namely Seurat, Monocle, and slalom. Both the CITE-seq dataset and the code used to analyze it are freely shared and fully reusable for future research