2,898 research outputs found
Porosity and Micro-Hardness of Shrouded Plasma Sprayed Titanium Coatings
Titanium and its alloys are often used as key materials for corrosion protection. A promising approach to optimize both mechanical properties and corrosion resistance is the use of
coating technologies. In this paper, shrouded plasma spray was used as a useful technology to produce low oxide containing titanium coatings. A solid shroud was used to plasma spray titanium coatings to reduce the oxide content. The titanium coatings were assessed by optical microscope, scanning electron microscopy and Vickers microhardness testing. The results showed that the shrouded titanium coatings exhibited an enhanced microstructure. The presence of the shroud and
shroud gas flow led to a significant reduction in coating porosity because the reduction in air entrainment with the shroud resulted in better heating of the particles. The shrouded titanium coatings had a lower value of Vickers microhardness and a relative lower standard deviation than the air plasma sprayed titanium coatings
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Resonances in coupled πk,ηK scattering from lattice QCD
Coupled-channel and scattering amplitudes are determined by
studying the finite-volume energy spectra obtained from dynamical lattice QCD
calculations. Using a large basis of interpolating operators, including both
those resembling a construction and those resembling a pair of
mesons with relative momentum, a reliable excited-state spectrum can be
obtained. Working at , we find a gradual increase in
the phase-shift which may be identified with a broad scalar
resonance that couples strongly to and weakly to . The
low-energy behavior of this amplitude suggests a virtual bound-state that may
be related to the resonance. A bound state with is found
very close to the threshold energy, whose coupling to the
channel is compatible with that of the experimental . Evidence is
found for a narrow resonance in . Isospin--3/2 scattering is
also studied and non-resonant phase-shifts spanning the whole elastic
scattering region are obtained.We thank our colleagues within the Hadron Spectrum
Collaboration. We also thank R. Briceno, M.R. Pennington,
C.J.Shultz and A.P. Szczepaniak for fruitful discussions.
Chroma [63] and QUDA [64, 65] were used to perform
this work on clusters at Jefferson Laboratory under the
USQCD Initiative and the LQCD ARRA project. Gauge
configurations were generated using resources awarded
from the U.S. Department of Energy INCITE program
at Oak Ridge National Lab, the NSF Teragrid at the
Texas Advanced Computer Center and the Pittsburgh
Supercomputer Center, as well as at Jefferson Lab. RGE
and JJD acknowledge support from U.S. Department of
Energy contract DE-AC05-06OR23177, under which Jefferson
Science Associates, LLC, manages and operates
Jefferson Laboratory. JJD acknowledges support from
the U.S. Department of Energy Early Career award contract
DE-SC0006765. CET acknowledges partial support
from the Science and Technology Facilities Council
(U.K.) [grant number ST/L000385/1].This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.91.054008
Prevalence rates of health and welfare conditions in broiler chickens change with weather in a temperate climate
Climate change impact assessment and adaptation research in agriculture has focused primarily on crop production, with less known about the potential impacts on livestock. We investigated how the prevalence of health and welfare conditions in broiler (meat) chickens changes with weather (temperature, rainfall, air frost) in a temperate climate. Cases of 16 conditions were recorded at approved slaughterhouses in Great Britain. National prevalence rates and distribution mapping were based on data from more than 2.4 billion individuals, collected between January 2011 and December 2013. Analysis of temporal distribution and associations with national weather were based on monthly data from more than 6.8 billion individuals, collected between January 2003 and December 2013. Ascites, bruising/fractures, hepatitis and abnormal colour/fever were most common, at annual average rates of 29.95, 28.00, 23.76 and 22.29 per 10 000, respectively. Ascites and abnormal colour/fever demonstrated clear annual cycles, with higher rates in winter than in summer. Ascites prevalence correlated strongly with maximum temperature at 0 and −1 month lags. Abnormal colour/fever correlated strongly with temperature at 0 lag. Maximum temperatures of approximately 8°C and approximately 19°C marked the turning points of curve in a U-shaped relationship with mortality during transportation and lairage. Future climate change research on broilers should focus on preslaughter mortality
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B1 resonance in coupled πω, πφ scattering from lattice QCD
We present the first lattice QCD calculation of coupled and
scattering, incorporating coupled and -wave in
. Finite-volume spectra in three volumes are determined via a
variational analysis of matrices of two-point correlation functions, computed
using large bases of operators resembling single-meson, two-meson and
three-meson structures, with the light-quark mass corresponding to a pion mass
of MeV. Utilizing the relationship between the discrete
spectrum of finite-volume energies and infinite-volume scattering amplitudes,
we find a narrow axial-vector resonance (), the analogue of the
meson, with mass MeV and width
MeV. The resonance is found to couple dominantly to -wave , with
a much-suppressed coupling to -wave , and a negligible coupling
to consistent with the `OZI rule'. No resonant behavior is observed
in , indicating the absence of a putative low-mass analogue of
the claimed in . In order to minimally present the contents
of a unitary three-channel scattering matrix, we introduce an -channel
generalization of the traditional two-channel Stapp parameterization
Decays of an exotic 1-+ hybrid meson resonance in QCD
We present the first determination of the hadronic decays of the lightest
exotic resonance in lattice QCD. Working with SU(3) flavor
symmetry, where the up, down and strange quark masses approximately match the
physical strange-quark mass giving MeV, we compute
finite-volume spectra on six lattice volumes which constrain a scattering
system featuring eight coupled channels. Analytically continuing the scattering
amplitudes into the complex energy plane, we find a pole singularity
corresponding to a narrow resonance which shows relatively weak coupling to the
open pseudoscalar--pseudoscalar, vector--pseudoscalar and vector--vector decay
channels, but large couplings to at least one kinematically-closed
axial-vector--pseudoscalar channel. Attempting a simple extrapolation of the
couplings to physical light-quark mass suggests a broad resonance
decaying dominantly through the mode with much smaller decays into
, , and . A large total width is
potentially in agreement with the experimental candidate state,
observed in , , which we suggest may be heavily suppressed
decay channels
Rapid bidirectional reorganization of cortical microcircuits.
Mature neocortex adapts to altered sensory input by changing neural activity in cortical circuits. The underlying cellular mechanisms remain unclear. We used blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to show reorganization in somatosensory cortex elicited by altered whisker sensory input. We found that there was rapid expansion followed by retraction of whisker cortical maps. The cellular basis for the reorganization in primary somatosensory cortex was investigated with paired electrophysiological recordings in the periphery of the expanded whisker representation. During map expansion, the chance of finding a monosynaptic connection between pairs of pyramidal neurons increased 3-fold. Despite the rapid increase in local excitatory connectivity, the average strength and synaptic dynamics did not change, which suggests that new excitatory connections rapidly acquire the properties of established excitatory connections. During map retraction, entire excitatory connections between pyramidal neurons were lost. In contrast, connectivity between pyramidal neurons and fast spiking interneurons was unchanged. Hence, the changes in local excitatory connectivity did not occur in all circuits involving pyramidal neurons. Our data show that pyramidal neurons are recruited to and eliminated from local excitatory networks over days. These findings suggest that the local excitatory connectome is dynamic in mature neocortex
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Adaptive Evolution as a Predictor of Species-Specific Innate Immune Response
It has been proposed that positive selection may be associated with protein functional change. For example, human and macaque have different outcomes to HIV infection and it has been shown that residues under positive selection in the macaque TRIM5α receptor locate to the region known to influence species-specific response to HIV. In general, however, the relationship between sequence and function has proven difficult to fully elucidate, and it is the role of large-scale studies to help bridge this gap in our understanding by revealing major patterns in the data that correlate genotype with function or phenotype. In this study, we investigate the level of species-specific positive selection in innate immune genes from human and mouse. In total, we analyzed 456 innate immune genes using codon-based models of evolution, comparing human, mouse, and 19 other vertebrate species to identify putative species-specific positive selection. Then we used population genomic data from the recently completed Neanderthal genome project, the 1000 human genomes project, and the 17 laboratory mouse genomes project to determine whether the residues that were putatively positively selected are fixed or variable in these populations. We find evidence of species-specific positive selection on both the human and the mouse branches and we show that the classes of genes under positive selection cluster by function and by interaction. Data from this study provide us with targets to test the relationship between positive selection and protein function and ultimately to test the relationship between positive selection and discordant phenotypes
RocA truncation underpins hyper-encapsulation, carriage longevity and transmissibility of serotype M18 group A streptococci
Group A streptococcal isolates of serotype M18 are historically associated with epidemic waves of pharyngitis and the non-suppurative immune sequela rheumatic fever. The serotype is defined by a unique, highly encapsulated phenotype, yet the molecular basis for this unusual colony morphology is unknown. Here we identify a truncation in the regulatory protein RocA, unique to and conserved within our serotype M18 GAS collection, and demonstrate that it underlies the characteristic M18 capsule phenotype. Reciprocal allelic exchange mutagenesis of rocA between M18 GAS and M89 GAS demonstrated that truncation of RocA was both necessary and sufficient for hyper-encapsulation via up-regulation of both precursors required for hyaluronic acid synthesis. Although RocA was shown to positively enhance covR transcription, quantitative proteomics revealed RocA to be a metabolic regulator with activity beyond the CovR/S regulon. M18 GAS demonstrated a uniquely protuberant chain formation following culture on agar that was dependent on excess capsule and the RocA mutation. Correction of the M18 rocA mutation reduced GAS survival in human blood, and in vivo naso-pharyngeal carriage longevity in a murine model, with an associated drop in bacterial airborne transmission during infection. In summary, a naturally occurring truncation in a regulator explains the encapsulation phenotype, carriage longevity and transmissibility of M18 GAS, highlighting the close interrelation of metabolism, capsule and virulence
The pentraxin family regulates neuronal and microglial function in the CNS and is disrupted in phenotypes associated with Alzheimer’s disease
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Coupled ππ, KK¯ scattering in P-wave and the ρ resonance from lattice QCD
We determine elastic and coupled-channel amplitudes for isospin-1 meson-meson
scattering in -wave, by calculating correlation functions using lattice QCD
with light quark masses such that MeV in a cubic volume of . Variational analyses of large matrices of correlation
functions computed using operator constructions resembling ,
and , in several moving frames and several lattice
irreducible representations, leads to discrete energy spectra from which
scattering amplitudes are extracted. In the elastic scattering region
we obtain a detailed energy-dependence for the phase-shift, corresponding to a
resonance, and we extend the analysis into the coupled-channel
region for the first time, finding a small coupling between the
channels.We thank our colleagues within the Hadron Spectrum Collaboration, and in particular, thank B´alint Jo´o for his help. The software codes Chroma [43], QUDA [34, 35], QPhiX [44], and QOPQDP [32, 33] were used to compute the propagators required for this project. The contractions were performed on clusters at Jefferson Laboratory under the USQCD Initiative and the LQCD ARRA project. This research was supported in part under an ALCC award, and used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DEAC05-00OR22725. This research is also part of the Blue Waters sustained-petascale computing project, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (awards OCI-0725070 and ACI-1238993) and the state of Illinois. Blue Waters is a joint effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its National Center for Supercomputing Applications. This work is also part of the PRAC “Lattice QCD on Blue Waters”. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DEAC02-05CH11231. The authors acknowledge the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin for providing HPC resources that have contributed to the research results reported within this paper. Gauge configurations were generated using resources awarded from the U.S. Department of Energy INCITE program at Oak Ridge National Lab, and also resources awarded at NERSC. RAB, RGE and JJD acknowledge support from U.S. Department of Energy contract DE-AC05-06OR23177, under which Jefferson Science Associates, LLC, manages and operates Jefferson Laboratory. JJD acknowledges support from the U.S. Department of Energy Early Career award contract DESC0006765. CET acknowledges partial support from the U.K. Science and Technology Facilities Council [grant number ST/L000385/1].This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from APSvia http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.92.09450
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