2,174 research outputs found
Orbital Magnetism and Current Distribution of Two-Dimensional Electrons under Confining Potential
The spatial distribution of electric current under magnetic field and the
resultant orbital magnetism have been studied for two-dimensional electrons
under a harmonic confining potential V(\vecvar{r})=m \omega_0^2 r^2/2 in
various regimes of temperature and magnetic field, and the microscopic
conditions for the validity of Landau diamagnetism are clarified. Under a weak
magnetic field (\omega_c\lsim\omega_0, \omega_c being a cyclotron frequency)
and at low temperature (T\lsim\hbar\omega_0), where the orbital magnetic
moment fluctuates as a function of the field, the currents are irregularly
distributed paramagnetically or diamagnetically inside the bulk region. As the
temperature is raised under such a weak field, however, the currents in the
bulk region are immediately reduced and finally there only remains the
diamagnetic current flowing along the edge. At the same time, the usual Landau
diamagnetism results for the total magnetic moment. The origin of this dramatic
temperature dependence is seen to be in the multiple reflection of electron
waves by the boundary confining potential, which becomes important once the
coherence length of electrons gets longer than the system length. Under a
stronger field (\omega_c\gsim\omega_0), on the other hand, the currents in
the bulk region cause de Haas-van Alphen effect at low temperature as
T\lsim\hbar\omega_c. As the temperature gets higher (T\gsim\hbar\omega_c)
under such a strong field, the bulk currents are reduced and the Landau
diamagnetism by the edge current is recovered.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figure
Coarse-grained reconfigurable array architectures
Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Array (CGRA) architectures accelerate the same inner loops that benefit from the high ILP support in VLIW architectures. By executing non-loop code on other cores, however, CGRAs can focus on such loops to execute them more efficiently. This chapter discusses the basic principles of CGRAs, and the wide range of design options available to a CGRA designer, covering a large number of existing CGRA designs. The impact of different options on flexibility, performance, and power-efficiency is discussed, as well as the need for compiler support. The ADRES CGRA design template is studied in more detail as a use case to illustrate the need for design space exploration, for compiler support and for the manual fine-tuning of source code
Spontaneous aortic rupture in a patient with neurofibromatosis type 1
Neurofibromatosis type I (NF-1) is a rare autosomal dominant genetic disorder occurring in 1 in 3,000 individuals. Vasculopathy is a rarely reported finding in patients with NF-1. Here, we report a case of recurrent aortic pseudoaneurysm after endovascular aneurysm repair in a 49-year-old male patient with NF-1. On the sixth postoperative day following a successful open surgical repair of an aortic pseudoaneurysm, he developed hemoperitoneum due to a delayed rupture of the mesenteric artery branch. This was treated with endovascular coil embolization. We report the clinical features and histologic findings of this rare vascular disorder with a review of the relevant literature
Reactive Oxygen Species Released from Hypoxic Hepatocytes Regulates MMP-2 Expression in Hepatic Stellate Cells
Hypoxia is a common environmental stress factor and is associated with fibrogenesis. Matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2), produced by hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), plays an important role in liver fibrogenesis. However, inconsistent results have been reported on the impact of hypoxia on MMP-2 expression and activity in HSCs. We speculated that cell–cell interaction is involved in the regulation of MMP-2 expression and activity at low oxygen level in vivo. Therefore, in this report we investigated the mechanism by which hypoxic hepatocytes regulates MMP-2 expression in HSCs. Our results showed that the conditioned medium from hypoxia-treated rat hepatocytes strongly induced the expression of MMP-2 mRNA and protein in rat HSC-T6 cells. Reduced glutathione neutralized ROS released from hypoxic hepatocytes, leading to reduced MMP-2 expression in HSC-T6 cells. In addition, phospho-IκB-α protein level was increased in HSC-T6 cells treated with hypoxia conditioned medium, and NF-κB signaling inhibitor inhibited MMP-2 expression in HSC-T6 cells. Taken together, our data suggest that ROS is an important factor released by hypoxic hepatocytes to regulate MMP-2 expression in HSCs, and NF-κB signaling is crucially involved in ROS-induced MMP-2 expression in HSCs. Our findings suggest that strategies aimed at antagonizing the generation of ROS in hypoxic hepatocytes and inhibiting NF-κB signaling in HSCs may represent novel therapeutic options for liver fibrosis
Pulmonary Evaluation of Patients Presenting with Dermatological Manifestations of Sarcoidosis
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65674/1/j.1365-4362.1981.tb00826.x.pd
Cosolvent, ions, and temperature effects on the structural properties of cecropin A-Magainin 2 hybrid peptide in solutions
Antimicrobial peptides are promising alternative to traditional antibiotics and antitumor drugs for the battle against new antibiotic resistant bacteria strains and cancer maladies. The study of their structural and dynamics properties at physiological conditions can help to understand their stability, delivery mechanisms, and activity in the human body. In this article, we have used molecular dynamics simulations to study the effects of solvent environment, temperature, ions concentration, and peptide concentration on the structural properties of the antimicrobial hybrid peptide Cecropin A–Magainin 2. In TFE/water mixtures, the structure of the peptide retained α-helix contents and an average hinge angle in close agreement with the experimental NMR and CD measurements reported in literature. Compared to the TFE/water mixture, the peptide simulated at the same ionic concentration lost most of its α-helix structure. The increase of peptide concentration at both 300 and 310 K resulted in the peptide aggregation. The peptides in the complex retained the initial N-ter α-helix segment during all the simulation. The α-helix stabilization is further enhanced in the high salt concentration simulations. The peptide aggregation was not observed in TFE/water mixture simulations and, the peptide aggregate, obtained from the water simulation, simulated in the same conditions did dissolve within few tens of nanoseconds. The results of this study provide insights at molecular level on the structural and dynamics properties of the CA-MA peptide at physiological and membrane mimic conditions that can help to better understand its delivery and interaction with biological interfaces. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers 103: 1–14, 201
Orbital Magnetism in the Ballistic Regime: Geometrical Effects
We present a general semiclassical theory of the orbital magnetic response of
noninteracting electrons confined in two-dimensional potentials. We calculate
the magnetic susceptibility of singly-connected and the persistent currents of
multiply-connected geometries. We concentrate on the geometric effects by
studying confinement by perfect (disorder free) potentials stressing the
importance of the underlying classical dynamics. We demonstrate that in a
constrained geometry the standard Landau diamagnetic response is always
present, but is dominated by finite-size corrections of a quasi-random sign
which may be orders of magnitude larger. These corrections are very sensitive
to the nature of the classical dynamics. Systems which are integrable at zero
magnetic field exhibit larger magnetic response than those which are chaotic.
This difference arises from the large oscillations of the density of states in
integrable systems due to the existence of families of periodic orbits. The
connection between quantum and classical behavior naturally arises from the use
of semiclassical expansions. This key tool becomes particularly simple and
insightful at finite temperature, where only short classical trajectories need
to be kept in the expansion. In addition to the general theory for integrable
systems, we analyze in detail a few typical examples of experimental relevance:
circles, rings and square billiards. In the latter, extensive numerical
calculations are used as a check for the success of the semiclassical analysis.
We study the weak-field regime where classical trajectories remain essentially
unaffected, the intermediate field regime where we identify new oscillations
characteristic for ballistic mesoscopic structures, and the high-field regime
where the typical de Haas-van Alphen oscillations exhibit finite-size
corrections. We address the comparison with experimental data obtained in
high-mobility semiconductor microstructures discussing the differences between
individual and ensemble measurements, and the applicability of the present
model.Comment: 88 pages, 15 Postscript figures, 3 further figures upon request, to
appear in Physics Reports 199
Quantum information processing with superconducting qubits in a microwave field
We investigate the quantum dynamics of a Cooper-pair box with a
superconducting loop in the presence of a nonclassical microwave field. We
demonstrate the existence of Rabi oscillations for both single- and
multi-photon processes and, moreover, we propose a new quantum computing scheme
(including one-bit and conditional two-bit gates) based on Josephson qubits
coupled through microwaves.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur
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