The "quasi-stable" lipid shelled microbubble in response to consecutive ultrasound pulses

Controlled microbubble stability upon exposure to consecutive ultrasound exposures is important for increased sensitivity in contrast enhanced ultrasound diagnostics and manipulation for localised drug release. An ultra high-speed camera operating at 13 × 10 6 frames per second is used to show that a physical instability in the encapsulating lipid shell can be promoted by ultrasound, causing loss of shell material that depends on the characteristics of the microbubble motion. This leads to well characterized disruption, and microbubbles follow an irreversible trajectory through the resonance peak, causing the evolution of specific microbubble spectral signatures. © 2012 American Institute of Physics

Optoelectronic analysis of multijunction wire array solar cells

Wire arrays have demonstrated promising photovoltaic performance as single junction solar cells and are well suited to defect mitigation in heteroepitaxy. These attributes can combine in tandem wire array solar cells, potentially leading to high efficiencies. Here, we demonstrate initial growths of GaAs on Si_(0.9)Ge_(0.1) structures and investigate III-V on Si_(1-x)Ge_x device design with an analytical model and optoelectronic simulations. We consider Si_(0.1)Ge_(0.9) wires coated with a GaAs_(0.9)P_(0.1) shell in three different geometries: conformal, hemispherical, and spherical. The analytical model indicates that efficiencies approaching 34% are achievable with high quality materials. Full field electromagnetic simulations serve to elucidate the optical loss mechanisms and demonstrate light guiding into the wire core. Simulated current-voltage curves under solar illumination reveal the impact of a varying GaAs_(0.9)P_(0.1) minority carrier lifetime. Finally, defective regions at the hetero-interface are shown to have a negligible effect on device performance if highly doped so as to serve as a back surface field. Overall, the growths and the model demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed geometries and can be used to guide tandem wire array solar cell designs

The prescribed mean curvature equation in weakly regular domains

We show that the characterization of existence and uniqueness up to vertical translations of solutions to the prescribed mean curvature equation, originally proved by Giusti in the smooth case, holds true for domains satisfying very mild regularity assumptions. Our results apply in particular to the non-parametric solutions of the capillary problem for perfectly wetting fluids in zero gravity. Among the essential tools used in the proofs, we mention a \textit{generalized Gauss-Green theorem} based on the construction of the weak normal trace of a vector field with bounded divergence, in the spirit of classical results due to Anzellotti, and a \textit{weak Young's law} for $(\Lambda,r_{0})$-minimizers of the perimeter.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figure --- The results on the weak normal trace of vector fields have been now extended and moved in a self-contained paper available at: arXiv:1708.0139

On the sedimentological origin of down-core variations of bulk sedimentary nitrogen isotope ratios

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2005. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Paleoceanography 20 (2005): PA2009, doi:10.1029/2004PA001081.The bulk sedimentary nitrogen isotopic composition of two cores from nearby sites on the northern slope of the South China Sea (Site 17940 and Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1144) differs by up to >2‰ during the last glacial period. Given their close proximity, both core sites are located in the same biogeographic zone and nutrient regime, and it is thus unlikely that this offset is due to a true gradient in surface ocean conditions. In an attempt to resolve this offset, we have investigated the possible effects of two sedimentological parameters that can affect bulk sedimentary δ15N, namely, the variable contribution of inorganic N to bulk N in the sediment and the grain-size dependence of bulk δ15N. We find that neither effect, singly or in combination, is sufficient to explain the significant δ15N offset between the two down-core records. By elimination the most likely explanation for the observed discrepancy is a different origin of both the organic and inorganic nitrogen at each site. This study adds to the growing body of evidence highlighting the complex nature and origin of the sedimentary components in sediment drifts, such as ODP Site 1144.Funding from NSERC Canada (to S.E.C. and M.K.) and NSF (OCE-0214365 and OCE-0318371 to M.J.H. and OCE-0327405 to T.I.E.) is gratefully acknowledged, as well as Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Postdoctoral Fellowships (M.K. and G.M.), the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Postdoctoral Program in Environmental Chemistry (M.J.H.), and a Geological Society of America student research grant (M.K.)

Cerebral magnetic resonance imaging in quiescent Crohn’s disease patients with fatigue

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A Novel Family of Toxoplasma IMC Proteins Displays a Hierarchical Organization and Functions in Coordinating Parasite Division

Apicomplexans employ a peripheral membrane system called the inner membrane complex (IMC) for critical processes such as host cell invasion and daughter cell formation. We have identified a family of proteins that define novel sub-compartments of the Toxoplasma gondii IMC. These IMC Sub-compartment Proteins, ISP1, 2 and 3, are conserved throughout the Apicomplexa, but do not appear to be present outside the phylum. ISP1 localizes to the apical cap portion of the IMC, while ISP2 localizes to a central IMC region and ISP3 localizes to a central plus basal region of the complex. Targeting of all three ISPs is dependent upon N-terminal residues predicted for coordinated myristoylation and palmitoylation. Surprisingly, we show that disruption of ISP1 results in a dramatic relocalization of ISP2 and ISP3 to the apical cap. Although the N-terminal region of ISP1 is necessary and sufficient for apical cap targeting, exclusion of other family members requires the remaining C-terminal region of the protein. This gate-keeping function of ISP1 reveals an unprecedented mechanism of interactive and hierarchical targeting of proteins to establish these unique sub-compartments in the Toxoplasma IMC. Finally, we show that loss of ISP2 results in severe defects in daughter cell formation during endodyogeny, indicating a role for the ISP proteins in coordinating this unique process of Toxoplasma replication