33,411 research outputs found
Gravitoelectromagnetism and Dark Energy in Superconductors
A gravitomagnetic analogue of the London moment in superconductors can
explain the anomalous Cooper pair mass excess reported by Janet Tate.
Ultimately the gravitomagnetic London moment is attributed to the breaking of
the principle of general covariance in superconductors. This naturally implies
non-conservation of classical energy-momentum. Possible relation with the
manifestation of dark energy in superconductors is questioned.Comment: 10 pages. Poster presented at "From Quantum to Cosmos - Fundamental
Physics Research in Space" 22-24 May 2006, To Appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys.
Full one-loop electroweak corrections to e+e- to 3 jets at linear colliders
We describe the impact of the full one-loop electroweak terms of O(alpha_s
alpha_EM^3) entering the electron-positron into three-jet cross-section from
sqrt(s)=M_Z to TeV scale energies. We include both factorisable and
non-factorisable virtual corrections and photon bremsstrahlung. Their
importance for the measurement of alpha_S from jet rates and shape variables is
explained qualitatively and illustrated quantitatively, also in presence of
b-tagging.Comment: 6 pages, to appear in the proceedings of the workshop "LC09 -- e+e-
Physics at the TeV scale and the Dark Matter Connection", 21-24 September
2009, Perugia (Italy). Minor corrections, references added
Quantum Control Theory for State Transformations: Dark States and their Enlightenment
For many quantum information protocols such as state transfer, entanglement
transfer and entanglement generation, standard notions of controllability for
quantum systems are too strong. We introduce the weaker notion of accessible
pairs, and prove an upper bound on the achievable fidelity of a transformation
between a pair of states based on the symmetries of the system. A large class
of spin networks is presented for which this bound can be saturated. In this
context, we show how the inaccessible dark states for a given
excitation-preserving evolution can be calculated, and illustrate how some of
these can be accessed using extra catalytic excitations. This emphasises that
it is not sufficient for analyses of state transfer in spin networks to
restrict to the single excitation subspace. One class of symmetries in these
spin networks is exactly characterised in terms of the underlying graph
properties.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures v3: rewritten for increased clarit
A degenerate PCR-based strategy as a means of identifying homologues of aminoglycoside and ß-lactam resistance genes in the gut microbiota
peer-reviewedBackground: The potential for the human gut microbiota to serve as a reservoir for antibiotic resistance genes has been the subject of recent discussion. However, this has yet to be investigated using a rapid PCR-based approach. In light of this, here we aim to determine if degenerate PCR primers can detect aminoglycoside and β-lactam resistance genes in the gut microbiota of healthy adults, without the need for an initial culture-based screen for resistant isolates. In doing so, we would determine if the gut microbiota of healthy adults, lacking recent antibiotic exposure, is a reservoir for resistance genes.
Results: The strategy employed resulted in the identification of numerous aminoglycoside (acetylation, adenylation and phosphorylation) and β-lactam (including bla
OXA, bla TEM, bla SHV and bla CTX-M) resistance gene homologues. On the basis of homology, it would appear that these genes originated from different bacterial taxa, with members of the Enterobacteriaceae being a particularly rich source. The results demonstrate that, even in the absence of recent antibiotic exposure, the human gut microbiota is a considerable reservoir for antibiotic resistance genes.
Conclusions: This study has demonstrated that the gut can be a significant source of aminoglycoside and β-lactam resistance genes, even in the absence of recent antibiotic exposure. The results also demonstrate that PCR-based approaches can be successfully applied to detect antibiotic resistance genes in the human gut microbiota, without the need to isolate resistant strains. This approach could also be used to rapidly screen other complex environments for target genes.Fiona Fouhy is in receipt of an Irish Research Council EMBARK scholarship
and is a Teagasc Walsh fellow. Research in the PDC laboratory is also
supported by the Irish Government under the National Development Plan through the Science Foundation Ireland Investigator award 11/PI/113
Quasiharmonic elastic constants corrected for deviatoric thermal stresses
The quasiharmonic approximation (QHA), in its simplest form also called the
statically constrained (SC) QHA, has been shown to be a straightforward method
to compute thermoelastic properties of crystals. Recently we showed that for
non-cubic solids SC-QHA calculations develop deviatoric thermal stresses at
high temperatures. Relaxation of these stresses leads to a series of
corrections to the free energy that may be taken to any desired order, up to
self-consistency. Here we show how to correct the elastic constants obtained
using the SC-QHA. We exemplify the procedure by correcting to first order the
elastic constants of MgSiO-perovskite and MgSiO-post-perovskite, the
major phases of the Earth's lower mantle. We show that this first order
correction is quite satisfactory for obtaining the aggregated elastic averages
of these minerals and their velocities in the lower mantle. This type of
correction is also shown to be applicable to experimental measurements of
elastic constants in situations where deviatoric stresses can develop, such as
in diamond anvil cells.Comment: 4 figures, 1 table, submitted to Phys. Rev. B, July 200
Non-isotropy in the CMB power spectrum in single field inflation
Contaldi et al. [1] have suggested that an initial period of kinetic energy
domination in single field inflation may explain the lack of CMB power at large
angular scales. We note that in this situation it is natural that there also be
a spatial gradient in the initial value of the inflaton field, and that this
can provide a spatial asymmetry in the observed CMB power spectrum, manifest at
low multipoles. We investigate the nature of this asymmetry and comment on its
relation to possible anomalies at low multipoles.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures. In this revised version, we include the
Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, which was missing from the original. This
modifies some results in the low multipoles. The comparison with experiment
is slightly better but the change is not statistically significan
Targeting the Microbiota to Address Diet-Induced Obesity: A Time Dependent Challenge
peer-reviewedLinks between the gut microbiota and host metabolism have provided new perspectives on obesity. We previously showed that the link between the microbiota and fat deposition is age- and time-dependent subject to microbial adaptation to diet over time. We also demonstrated reduced weight gain in diet-induced obese (DIO) mice through manipulation of the gut microbiota with vancomycin or with the bacteriocin-producing probiotic Lactobacillus salivarius UCC118 (Bac+), with metabolic improvement achieved in DIO mice in receipt of vancomycin. However, two phases of weight gain were observed with effects most marked early in the intervention phase. Here, we compare the gut microbial populations at the early relative to the late stages of intervention using a high throughput sequencing-based analysis to understand the temporal relationship between the gut microbiota and obesity. This reveals several differences in microbiota composition over the intervening period. Vancomycin dramatically altered the gut microbiota composition, relative to controls, at the early stages of intervention after which time some recovery was evident. It was also revealed that Bac+ treatment initially resulted in the presence of significantly higher proportions of Peptococcaceae and significantly lower proportions of Rikenellaceae and Porphyromonadaceae relative to the gut microbiota of L. salivarius UCC118 bacteriocin negative (Bac-) administered controls. These differences were no longer evident at the later time. The results highlight the resilience of the gut microbiota and suggest that interventions may need to be monitored and continually adjusted to ensure sustained modification of the gut microbiota.The authors are supported in part by Teagasc, Science Foundation Ireland (in the form of a research centre grant to the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre and PI awards to PWOT and PC) and by Alimentary Health Ltd
Construction of Full-Depth Asphaltic Concrete Pavements
Considerable attention has been devoted to the design and use of full-depth asphaltic concrete pavements. An experimental full-depth pavement was constructed on the Cannonsburg-Ashland Road (US 60), and the mechanical response of each asphaltic concrete layer to static and dynamic loading has been tested during construction.
This report is a documentation of section designs and construction procedures and summarily presents construction test results to be used in future analyses
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