Dynamical trapping and chaotic scattering of the harmonically driven barrier

A detailed analysis of the classical nonlinear dynamics of a single driven square potential barrier with harmonically oscillating position is performed. The system exhibits dynamical trapping which is associated with the existence of a stable island in phase space. Due to the unstable periodic orbits of the KAM-structure, the driven barrier is a chaotic scatterer and shows stickiness of scattering trajectories in the vicinity of the stable island. The transmission function of a suitably prepared ensemble yields results which are very similar to tunneling resonances in the quantum mechanical regime. However, the origin of these resonances is different in the classical regime.Comment: 14 page

Nondestructive SEM for surface and subsurface wafer imaging

The scanning electron microscope (SEM) is considered as a tool for both failure analysis as well as device characterization. A survey is made of various operational SEM modes and their applicability to image processing methods on semiconductor devices

Исследование коррозионных свойств биосовместимых покрытий на основе титана, осажденных методом реактивного магнетронного распыления

В работе изучались свойства Ti-O-N покрытий, нанесенных на стальные подложки методом реактивного магнетронного напыления, такие как коррозионная стойкость, термическая устойчивость, а так же диффузионные процессы в физиологических растворах. Методами инфракрасной спектроскопии и атомно-эмиссионного анализа была установлена химическая инертность пленки, а так же потенциальная биологическая активность в виду обнаружения оксида азота в модельных растворах после контакта с покрытиями Ti-O-N.The properties of Ti-O-N coatings deposited on steel substrates by the method of reactive magnetron sputtering, such as corrosion resistance, thermal stability, as well as diffusion processes in physiological solutions were studied. By the methods of infrared spectroscopy and atomic emission analysis, the chemical inertness of the film was established, as well as the potential biological activity in the form of detection of nitrogen oxide in model solutions after contact with Ti-O-N coatings

Response and Resistance to Paradox-Breaking BRAF Inhibitor in Melanomas

FDA-approved BRAF inhibitors produce high response rates and improve overall survival in patients with BRAF V600E/K-mutant melanoma, but are linked to pathologies associated with paradoxical ERK1/2 activation in wild-type BRAF cells. To overcome this limitation, a next-generation paradox-breaking RAF inhibitor (PLX8394) has been designed. Here, we show that by using a quantitative reporter assay, PLX8394 rapidly suppressed ERK1/2 reporter activity and growth of mutant BRAF melanoma xenografts. Ex vivo treatment of xenografts and use of a patient-derived explant system (PDeX) revealed that PLX8394 suppressed ERK1/2 signaling and elicited apoptosis more effectively than the FDA-approved BRAF inhibitor, vemurafenib. Furthermore, PLX8394 was efficacious against vemurafenibresistant BRAF splice variant-expressing tumors and reduced splice variant homodimerization. Importantly, PLX8394 did not induce paradoxical activation of ERK1/2 in wild-type BRAF cell lines or PDeX. Continued in vivo dosing of xenografts with PLX8394 led to the development of acquired resistance via ERK1/2 reactivation through heterogeneous mechanisms; however, resistant cells were found to have differential sensitivity to ERK1/2 inhibitor. These findings highlight the efficacy of a paradox-breaking selective BRAF inhibitor and the use of PDeX system to test the efficacy of therapeutic agents. © 2017 American Association for Cancer Research

Assessing the Dream-Lag Effect for REM and NREM Stage 2 Dreams

This study investigates evidence, from dream reports, for memory consolidation during sleep. It is well-known that events andmemories from waking life can be incorporated into dreams. These incorporations can be a literal replication of what occurredin waking life, or, more often, they can be partial or indirect. Two types of temporal relationship have been found tocharacterize the time of occurrence of a daytime event and the reappearance or incorporation of its features in a dream. Thesetemporal relationships are referred to as the day-residue or immediate incorporation effect, where there is the reappearance offeatures from events occurring on the immediately preceding day, and the dream-lag effect, where there is the reappearanceof features from events occurring 5–7 days prior to the dream. Previous work on the dream-lag effect has used spontaneoushome recalled dream reports, which can be from Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (REM) and from non-Rapid Eye Movement Sleep(NREM). This study addresses whether the dream-lag effect occurs only for REM sleep dreams, or for both REM and NREM stage2 (N2) dreams. 20 participants kept a daily diary for over a week before sleeping in the sleep laboratory for 2 nights. REM andN2 dreams collected in the laboratory were transcribed and each participant rated the level of correspondence between everydream report and every diary record. The dream-lag effect was found for REM but not N2 dreams. Further analysis indicatedthat this result was not due to N2 dream reports being shorter, in terms of number of words, than the REM dream reports.These results provide evidence for a 7-day sleep-dependent non-linear memory consolidation process that is specific to REMsleep, and accord with proposals for the importance of REM sleep to emotional memory consolidation

Kerr-Newman Black Hole Thermodynamical State Space: Blockwise Coordinates

A coordinate system that blockwise-simplifies the Kerr-Newman black hole's thermodynamical state space Ruppeiner metric geometry is constructed, with discussion of the limiting cases corresponding to simpler black holes. It is deduced that one of the three conformal Killing vectors of the Reissner-Nordstrom and Kerr cases (whose thermodynamical state space metrics are 2 by 2 and conformally flat) survives generalization to the Kerr-Newman case's 3 by 3 thermodynamical state space metric.Comment: 4 pages incl 2 figs. Accepted by Gen. Rel. Grav. Replaced with Accepted version (minor corrections

Quantum inequalities and `quantum interest' as eigenvalue problems

Quantum inequalities (QI's) provide lower bounds on the averaged energy density of a quantum field. We show how the QI's for massless scalar fields in even dimensional Minkowski space may be reformulated in terms of the positivity of a certain self-adjoint operator - a generalised Schroedinger operator with the energy density as the potential - and hence as an eigenvalue problem. We use this idea to verify that the energy density produced by a moving mirror in two dimensions is compatible with the QI's for a large class of mirror trajectories. In addition, we apply this viewpoint to the `quantum interest conjecture' of Ford and Roman, which asserts that the positive part of an energy density always overcompensates for any negative components. For various simple models in two and four dimensions we obtain the best possible bounds on the `quantum interest rate' and on the maximum delay between a negative pulse and a compensating positive pulse. Perhaps surprisingly, we find that - in four dimensions - it is impossible for a positive delta-function pulse of any magnitude to compensate for a negative delta-function pulse, no matter how close together they occur.Comment: 18 pages, RevTeX. One new result added; typos fixed. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Food-based dietary guidelines for optimizing calcium intakes for reproductive-aged women in Ethiopia using local foods

© 2024 The Author(s). Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The New York Academy of Sciences.Increasing dietary calcium intakes of Ethiopian women of reproductive age (WRA) is a public health priority for reducing pre-eclampsia in pregnancy. Using linear programming, we determined whether locally available foods consumed by WRA in nine regions (urban and rural) and two administrative cities of Ethiopia could provide 1000 mg/day of dietary calcium, and we identified food-based recommendations (FBRs) to improve dietary calcium adequacy in each region. Results showed that diets providing 1000 mg/day of calcium were feasible in eight regions (40%) of the target populations examined. It would, however, require marked changes for most populations (90%), increasing the number of servings per week of several food groups to levels close to those of high consumers in each population. The selected calcium-specific FBRs integrate well into the 2022 Ethiopian Dietary Guidelines, requiring additional messages to consume green leafy vegetables, milk, root crops, or teff (Eragrostis tef) or to consume a higher number of servings of vegetables than currently recommended, depending on the population. In conclusion, these analyses show that a food-based approach can be used to achieve dietary calcium adequacy among WRA in 40% of the populations examined. For the other populations, food-based interventions alone may be inadequate and other interventions are likely needed.publishersversionepub_ahead_of_prin