7,491 research outputs found
Sliding charge density wave in manganites
The so-called stripe phase of the manganites is an important example of the
complex behaviour of metal oxides, and has long been interpreted as the
localisation of charge at atomic sites. Here, we demonstrate via resistance
measurements on La_{0.50}Ca_{0.50}MnO_3 that this state is in fact a
prototypical charge density wave (CDW) which undergoes collective transport.
Dramatic resistance hysteresis effects and broadband noise properties are
observed, both of which are typical of sliding CDW systems. Moreover, the high
levels of disorder typical of manganites result in behaviour similar to that of
well-known disordered CDW materials. Our discovery that the manganite
superstructure is a CDW shows that unusual transport and structural properties
do not require exotic physics, but can emerge when a well-understood phase (the
CDW) coexists with disorder.Comment: 13 pages; 4 figure
Self-assembly of Microcapsules via Colloidal Bond Hybridization and Anisotropy
Particles with directional interactions are promising building blocks for new
functional materials and may serve as models for biological structures.
Mutually attractive nanoparticles that are deformable due to flexible surface
groups, for example, may spontaneously order themselves into strings, sheets
and large vesicles. Furthermore, anisotropic colloids with attractive patches
can self-assemble into open lattices and colloidal equivalents of molecules and
micelles. However, model systems that combine mutual attraction, anisotropy,
and deformability have---to the best of our knowledge---not been realized.
Here, we synthesize colloidal particles that combine these three
characteristics and obtain self-assembled microcapsules. We propose that mutual
attraction and deformability induce directional interactions via colloidal bond
hybridization. Our particles contain both mutually attractive and repulsive
surface groups that are flexible. Analogous to the simplest chemical bond,
where two isotropic orbitals hybridize into the molecular orbital of H2, these
flexible groups redistribute upon binding. Via colloidal bond hybridization,
isotropic spheres self-assemble into planar monolayers, while anisotropic
snowman-like particles self-assemble into hollow monolayer microcapsules. A
modest change of the building blocks thus results in a significant leap in the
complexity of the self-assembled structures. In other words, these relatively
simple building blocks self-assemble into dramatically more complex structures
than similar particles that are isotropic or non-deformable
Liver transplantation for glycogen storage disease types I, III, and IV
Glycogen storage disease (GSD) types I, III, and IV can be associated with severe liver disease. The possible development of hepatocellular carcinoma and/or hepatic failure make these GSDs potential candidates for liver transplantation. Early diagnosis and initiation of effective dietary therapy have dramatically improved the outcome of GSD type I by reducing the incidence of liver adenoma and renal insufficiency. Nine type I and 3 type III patients have received liver transplants because of poor metabolic control, multiple liver adenomas, or progressive liver failure. Metabolic abnormalities were corrected in all GSD type I and type III patients, while catch-up growth was reported only in two patients. Whether liver transplantation results in reversal and/or prevention of renal disease remains unclear. Neutropenia persisted in both GSDIb patients post liver transplantation necessitating continuous granulocyte colony stimulating factor treatment. Thirteen GSD type IV patients were liver transplanted because of progressive liver cirrhosis and failure. All but one patient have not had neuromuscular or cardiac complications during follow-up periods for as long as 13 years. Four have died within a week and 5 years after transplantation. Caution should be taken in selecting GSD type IV candidates for liver transplantation because of the variable phenotype, which may include life-limiting extrahepatic manifestations. It remains to be evaluated, whether a genotype-phenotype correlation exists for GSD type IV, which may aid in the decision making. Conclusion Liver transplantation should be considered for patients with glycogen storage disease who have developed liver malignancy or hepatic failure, and for type IV patients with the classical and progressive hepatic form
Neural development features: Spatio-temporal development of the Caenorhabditis elegans neuronal network
The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, with information on neural connectivity,
three-dimensional position and cell linage provides a unique system for
understanding the development of neural networks. Although C. elegans has been
widely studied in the past, we present the first statistical study from a
developmental perspective, with findings that raise interesting suggestions on
the establishment of long-distance connections and network hubs. Here, we
analyze the neuro-development for temporal and spatial features, using birth
times of neurons and their three-dimensional positions. Comparisons of growth
in C. elegans with random spatial network growth highlight two findings
relevant to neural network development. First, most neurons which are linked by
long-distance connections are born around the same time and early on,
suggesting the possibility of early contact or interaction between connected
neurons during development. Second, early-born neurons are more highly
connected (tendency to form hubs) than later born neurons. This indicates that
the longer time frame available to them might underlie high connectivity. Both
outcomes are not observed for random connection formation. The study finds that
around one-third of electrically coupled long-range connections are late
forming, raising the question of what mechanisms are involved in ensuring their
accuracy, particularly in light of the extremely invariant connectivity
observed in C. elegans. In conclusion, the sequence of neural network
development highlights the possibility of early contact or interaction in
securing long-distance and high-degree connectivity
On the Interface Formation Model for Dynamic Triple Lines
This paper revisits the theory of Y. Shikhmurzaev on forming interfaces as a
continuum thermodynamical model for dynamic triple lines. We start with the
derivation of the balances for mass, momentum, energy and entropy in a
three-phase fluid system with full interfacial physics, including a brief
review of the relevant transport theorems on interfaces and triple lines.
Employing the entropy principle in the form given in [Bothe & Dreyer, Acta
Mechanica, doi:10.1007/s00707-014-1275-1] but extended to this more general
case, we arrive at the entropy production and perform a linear closure, except
for a nonlinear closure for the sorption processes. Specialized to the
isothermal case, we obtain a thermodynamically consistent mathematical model
for dynamic triple lines and show that the total available energy is a strict
Lyapunov function for this system
Nanoelectromechanical coupling in fullerene peapods probed via resonant electrical transport experiments
Fullerene peapods, that is carbon nanotubes encapsulating fullerene
molecules, can offer enhanced functionality with respect to empty nanotubes.
However, the present incomplete understanding of how a nanotube is affected by
entrapped fullerenes is an obstacle for peapods to reach their full potential
in nanoscale electronic applications. Here, we investigate the effect of C60
fullerenes on electron transport via peapod quantum dots. Compared to empty
nanotubes, we find an abnormal temperature dependence of Coulomb blockade
oscillations, indicating the presence of a nanoelectromechanical coupling
between electronic states of the nanotube and mechanical vibrations of the
fullerenes. This provides a method to detect the C60 presence and to probe the
interplay between electrical and mechanical excitations in peapods, which thus
emerge as a new class of nanoelectromechanical systems.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Published in Nature Communications. Free online
access to the published version until Sept 30th, 2010, see
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v1/n4/abs/ncomms1034.htm
Assessment of Chemical Inhibitor Addition to Improve the Gas Production from Biowaste
The coexistence of sulphate-reducing bacteria and methanogenic archaea in the reactors during the anaerobic digestion from sulphate-containing waste could favor the accumulation of sulfide on the biogas, and therefore reduce its quality. In this study, the effect of sulphate-reducing bacteria inhibitor (MoO−2
4 ) addition in a two phase system from sulphate-containing municipal solid waste to improve the quality of the biogas has been investigated. The results showed that although SRB and sulphide production decreased, the use of inhibitor was not effective to improve the anaerobic digestion in a two phase
system from sulphate-containing waste, since a significant decrease on biogas and organic matter removal were observed. Before MoO−2 4 addition the average values of volatile solid were around 12 g/kg, after 5 days of inhibitor use, those values did exceed to 28 g/kg. Molybdate caused acidification in the reactor and it was according to decrease in the pH values. In relation to microbial consortia, the effect of inhibitor was a decrease in Bacteria (44%; 60% in sulphate-reducing bacteria) and Archaea (38%) population
52-week efficacy and safety of telbivudine with conditional tenofovir intensification at week 24 in HBeAg-positive chronic Hepatitis B
Background and Aims: The Roadmap concept is a therapeutic framework in chronic hepatitis B for the intensification of nucleoside analogue monotherapy based on early virologic response. The efficacy and safety of this approach applied to telbivudine treatment has not been investigated.
Methods: A multinational, phase IV, single-arm open-label study (ClinicalTrials.gov ID NCT00651209) was undertaken in HBeAg-positive, nucleoside-naive adult patients with chronic hepatitis B. Patients received telbivudine (600 mg once-daily) for 24 weeks, after which those with undetectable serum HBV DNA (<300 copies/mL) continued to receive telbivudine alone while those with detectable DNA received telbivudine plus tenofovir (300 mg once-daily). Outcomes were assessed at Week 52.
Results: 105 patients commenced telbivudine monotherapy, of whom 100 were included in the efficacy analysis. Fifty-five (55%) had undetectable HBV DNA at Week 24 and continued telbivudine monotherapy; 45 (45%) received tenofovir intensification. At Week 52, the overall proportion of undetectable HBV DNA was 93% (93/100) by last-observation-carried-forward analysis (100% monotherapy group, 84% intensification group) and no virologic breakthroughs had occurred. ALT normalization occurred in 77% (87% monotherapy, 64% intensification), HBeAg clearance in 43% (65% monotherapy, 16% intensification), and HBeAg seroconversion in 39% (62% monotherapy, 11% intensification). Six patients had HBsAg clearance. Myalgia was more common in the monotherapy group (19% versus 7%). No decrease in the mean glomerular filtration rate occurred in either treatment group at Week 52.
Conclusions: Telbivudine therapy with tenofovir intensification at Week 24, where indicated by the Roadmap strategy, appears effective and well tolerated for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B.
Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT0065120
ReadNet: A Hierarchical Transformer Framework for Web Article Readability Analysis
Analyzing the readability of articles has been an important sociolinguistic
task. Addressing this task is necessary to the automatic recommendation of
appropriate articles to readers with different comprehension abilities, and it
further benefits education systems, web information systems, and digital
libraries. Current methods for assessing readability employ empirical measures
or statistical learning techniques that are limited by their ability to
characterize complex patterns such as article structures and semantic meanings
of sentences. In this paper, we propose a new and comprehensive framework which
uses a hierarchical self-attention model to analyze document readability. In
this model, measurements of sentence-level difficulty are captured along with
the semantic meanings of each sentence. Additionally, the sentence-level
features are incorporated to characterize the overall readability of an article
with consideration of article structures. We evaluate our proposed approach on
three widely-used benchmark datasets against several strong baseline
approaches. Experimental results show that our proposed method achieves the
state-of-the-art performance on estimating the readability for various web
articles and literature.Comment: ECIR 202
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