7,720 research outputs found
Efficient Algorithm on a Non-staggered Mesh for Simulating Rayleigh-Benard Convection in a Box
An efficient semi-implicit second-order-accurate finite-difference method is
described for studying incompressible Rayleigh-Benard convection in a box, with
sidewalls that are periodic, thermally insulated, or thermally conducting.
Operator-splitting and a projection method reduce the algorithm at each time
step to the solution of four Helmholtz equations and one Poisson equation, and
these are are solved by fast direct methods. The method is numerically stable
even though all field values are placed on a single non-staggered mesh
commensurate with the boundaries. The efficiency and accuracy of the method are
characterized for several representative convection problems.Comment: REVTeX, 30 pages, 5 figure
Horava-Lifshitz f(R) Gravity
This paper is devoted to the construction of new type of f(R) theories of
gravity that are based on the principle of detailed balance. We discuss two
versions of these theories with and without the projectability condition.Comment: 22 pages, references adde
Molecular and Cellular Analysis of the DMA Repair Defect in a Patient in Xeroderma Pigmentosum Complementation Group D Who Has the Clinical Features of Xeroderma Pigmentosum and Cockayne Syndrome
Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) and Cockayne syndrome (CS) are quite distinct genetic disorders that are associated with defects in excision repair of UV-induced DNA damage. A few patients have been described previously with the clinical features of both disorders. In this paper we describe an individual in this category who has unusual cellular responses to UV light. We show that his cultured fibroblasts and lymphocytes are extremely sensitive to irradiation with UV-C, despite a level of nucleotide excision repair that is 30%-40% that of normal cells. The deficiency is assigned to the XP-D complementation group, and we have identified two causative mutations in the XPD gene: a gly→arg change at amino acid 675 in the allele inherited from the patient's mother and a -1 frameshift at amino acid 669 in the allele inherited from his father. These mutations are in the C-terminal 20% of the 760-amino-acid XPD protein, in a region where we have recently identified several mutations in patients with trichothiodystrophy.</p
Molecular and Cellular Analysis of the DMA Repair Defect in a Patient in Xeroderma Pigmentosum Complementation Group D Who Has the Clinical Features of Xeroderma Pigmentosum and Cockayne Syndrome
Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) and Cockayne syndrome (CS) are quite distinct genetic disorders that are associated with defects in excision repair of UV-induced DNA damage. A few patients have been described previously with the clinical features of both disorders. In this paper we describe an individual in this category who has unusual cellular responses to UV light. We show that his cultured fibroblasts and lymphocytes are extremely sensitive to irradiation with UV-C, despite a level of nucleotide excision repair that is 30%-40% that of normal cells. The deficiency is assigned to the XP-D complementation group, and we have identified two causative mutations in the XPD gene: a gly→arg change at amino acid 675 in the allele inherited from the patient's mother and a -1 frameshift at amino acid 669 in the allele inherited from his father. These mutations are in the C-terminal 20% of the 760-amino-acid XPD protein, in a region where we have recently identified several mutations in patients with trichothiodystrophy.</p
Pattern and process in Amazon tree turnover, 1976-2001
Previous work has shown that tree turnover, tree biomass and large liana densities have increased in mature tropical forest plots in the late twentieth century. These results point to a concerted shift in forest ecological processes that may already be having significant impacts on terrestrial carbon stocks, fluxes and biodiversity. However, the findings have proved controversial, partly because a rather limited number of permanent plots have been monitored for rather short periods. The aim of this paper is to characterize regional-scale patterns of 'tree turnover' (the rate with which trees die and recruit into a population) by using improved datasets now available for Amazonia that span the past 25 years. Specifically, we assess whether concerted changes in turnover are occurring, and if so whether they are general throughout the Amazon or restricted to one region or environmental zone. In addition, we ask whether they are driven by changes in recruitment, mortality or both. We find that: (i) trees 10 cm or more in diameter recruit and die twice as fast on the richer soils of southern and western Amazonia than on the poorer soils of eastern and central Amazonia; (ii) turnover rates have increased throughout Amazonia over the past two decades; (iii) mortality and recruitment rates have both increased significantly in every region and environmental zone, with the exception of mortality in eastern Amazonia; (iv) recruitment rates have consistently exceeded mortality rates; (v) absolute increases in recruitment and mortality rates are greatest in western Amazonian sites; and (vi) mortality appears to be lagging recruitment at regional scales. These spatial patterns and temporal trends are not caused by obvious artefacts in the data or the analyses. The trends cannot be directly driven by a mortality driver (such as increased drought or fragmentation-related death) because the biomass in these forests has simultaneously increased. Our findings therefore indicate that long-acting and widespread environmental changes are stimulating the growth and productivity of Amazon forests
Calorie restriction does not elicit a robust extension of replicative lifespan in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Calorie restriction (CR) is often described as the most robust manner to extend lifespan in a large variety of organisms. Hence, considerable research effort is directed toward understanding the mechanisms underlying CR, especially in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. However, the effect of CR on lifespan has never been systematically reviewed in this organism. Here, we performed a meta-analysis of replicative lifespan (RLS) data published in more than 40 different papers. Our analysis revealed that there is significant variation in the reported RLS data, which appears to be mainly due to the low number of cells analyzed per experiment. Furthermore, we found that the RLS measured at 2% (wt/vol) glucose in CR experiments is partly biased toward shorter lifespans compared with identical lifespan measurements from other studies. Excluding the 2% (wt/vol) glucose experiments from CR experiments, we determined that the average RLS of the yeast strains BY4741 and BY4742 is 25.9 buds at 2% (wt/vol) glucose and 30.2 buds under CR conditions. RLS measurements with a microfluidic dissection platform produced identical RLS data at 2% (wt/vol) glucose. However, CR conditions did not induce lifespan extension. As we excluded obvious methodological differences, such as temperature and medium, as causes, we conclude that subtle method-specific factors are crucial to induce lifespan extension under CR conditions in S. cerevisiae
Perturbative instabilities in Horava gravity
We investigate the scalar and tensor perturbations in Horava gravity, with
and without detailed balance, around a flat background. Once both types of
perturbations are taken into account, it is revealed that the theory is plagued
by ghost-like scalar instabilities in the range of parameters which would
render it power-counting renormalizable, that cannot be overcome by simple
tricks such as analytic continuation. Implementing a consistent flow between
the UV and IR limits seems thus more challenging than initially presumed,
regardless of whether the theory approaches General Relativity at low energies
or not. Even in the phenomenologically viable parameter space, the tensor
sector leads to additional potential problems, such as fine-tunings and
super-luminal propagation.Comment: 21 pages, version published at Class. Quant. Gra
INFN What Next: Ultra-relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions
This document was prepared by the community that is active in Italy, within
INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), in the field of
ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. The experimental study of the phase
diagram of strongly-interacting matter and of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP)
deconfined state will proceed, in the next 10-15 years, along two directions:
the high-energy regime at RHIC and at the LHC, and the low-energy regime at
FAIR, NICA, SPS and RHIC. The Italian community is strongly involved in the
present and future programme of the ALICE experiment, the upgrade of which will
open, in the 2020s, a new phase of high-precision characterisation of the QGP
properties at the LHC. As a complement of this main activity, there is a
growing interest in a possible future experiment at the SPS, which would target
the search for the onset of deconfinement using dimuon measurements. On a
longer timescale, the community looks with interest at the ongoing studies and
discussions on a possible fixed-target programme using the LHC ion beams and on
the Future Circular Collider.Comment: 99 pages, 56 figure
Caustic avoidance in Horava-Lifshitz gravity
There are at least four versions of Horava-Lishitz gravity in the literature.
We consider the version without the detailed balance condition with the
projectability condition and address one aspect of the theory: avoidance of
caustics for constant time hypersurfaces. We show that there is no caustic with
plane symmetry in the absence of matter source if \lambda\ne 1. If \lambda=1 is
a stable IR fixed point of the renormalization group flow then \lambda is
expected to deviate from 1 near would-be caustics, where the extrinsic
curvature increases and high-energy corrections become important. Therefore,
the absence of caustics with \lambda\ne 1 implies that caustics cannot form
with this symmetry in the absence of matter source. We argue that inclusion of
matter source will not change the conclusion. We also argue that caustics with
codimension higher than one will not form because of repulsive gravity
generated by nonlinear higher curvature terms. These arguments support our
conjecture that there is no caustic for constant time hypersurfaces. Finally,
we discuss implications to the recently proposed scenario of ``dark matter as
integration constant''.Comment: 19 pages; extended to general z \geq 3, typos corrected (v2); version
accepted for publication in JCAP (v3
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