4,866 research outputs found
Large-Scale Structure of the Molecular Gas in Taurus Revealed by High Linear Dynamic Range Spectral Line Mapping
We report the results of a 100 square degree survey of the Taurus Molecular
Cloud region in the J = 1-0 transition of 12CO and 13CO. The image of the cloud
in each velocity channel includes ~ 3 million Nyquist sampled pixels on a 20"
grid. The high sensitivity and large linear dynamic range of the maps in both
isotopologues reveal a very complex, highly structured cloud morphology. There
are large scale correlated structures evident in 13CO emission having very fine
dimensions, including filaments, cavities, and rings. The 12CO emission shows a
quite different structure, with particularly complex interfaces between regions
of greater and smaller column density defining the boundaries of the
largest-scale cloud structures. The axes of the striations seen in the 12CO
emission from relatively diffuse gas are aligned with the direction of the
magnetic field. Using a column density-dependent model for the CO fractional
abundance, we derive the mass of the region mapped to be 24,000 solar masses, a
factor of three greater than would be obtained with canonical CO abundance
restricted to the high column density regions. We determine that half the mass
of the cloud is in regions having column density below 2.1x10^{21} per square
cm. The distribution of young stars in the region covered is highly nonuniform,
with the probability of finding a star in a pixel with a specified column
density rising sharply for N(H2) = 6x10^{21} cm^{-2}. We determine a relatively
low star formation efficiency (mass of young stars/mass of molecular gas),
between 0.3 and 1.2 %, and an average star formation rate during the past 3 Myr
of 8x10^{-5} stars yr^{-1}.Comment: 53 pages, 21 figure
A novel receive-only liquid nitrogen (LN2)-cooled RF coil for high-resolution in vivo imaging on a 3-Tesla whole-body scanner
The design and operation of a receive-only liquid nitrogen (LN2)-cooled coil and cryostat suitable for medical imaging on a 3-T whole-body magnetic resonance scanner is presented. The coil size, optimized for murine imaging, was determined by using electromagnetic (EM) simulations. This process is therefore easier and more cost effective than building a range of coils. A nonmagnetic cryostat suitable for small-animal imaging was developed having good vacuum and cryogenic temperature performance. The LN2-cooled probe had an active detuning circuit allowing the use with the scanner's built-in body coil. External tuning and matching was adopted to allow for changes to the coil due to temperature and loading. The performance of the probe was evaluated by comparison of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with the same radio-frequency RF) coil operating at room temperature (RT). The performance of the RF coil at RT was also benchmarked against a commercial surface coil with a similar dimension to ensure a fair SNR comparison. The cryogenic coil achieved a 1.6- to twofold SNR gain for several different medical imaging applications: For mouse-brain imaging, a 100-mu m resolution was achieved in an imaging time of 3.5 min with an SNR of 25-40, revealing fine anatomical details unseen at lower resolutions for the same time. For heavier loading conditions, such as imaging of the hind legs and liver, the SNR enhancement was slightly reduced to 1.6-fold. The observed SNR was in good agreement with the expected SNR gain correlated with the loaded-quality factor of RF coils from the EM simulations. With the aid of this end-user-friendly and economically attractive cryogenic RF coil, the enhanced SNR available can be used to improve resolution or reduce the duration of individual scans in a number of biomedical applications
Coarse Graining RNA Nanostructures for Molecular Dynamics Simulations
A series of coarse-grained models have been developed for the study of the
molecular dynamics of RNA nanostructures. The models in the series have one to
three beads per nucleotide and include different amounts of detailed structural
information. Such a treatment allows us to reach, for the systems of thousands
of nucleotides, a time scale of microseconds (i.e. by three orders of magnitude
longer than in the full atomistic modelling) and thus to enable simulations of
large RNA polymers in the context of bionanotechnology. We find that the
3-beads-per-nucleotide models, described by a set of just a few universal
parameters, are able to describe different RNA conformations and are comparable
in structural precision to the models where detailed values of the backbone
P-C4' dihedrals taken from a reference structure are included. These findings
are discussed in the context of the RNA conformation classes
Global Management Effectiveness Study: Integrated Social and Ecological Report for Non-node and Node Sites
The purpose of this study is to provide a critical assessment of the implementation, impact, and performance of Marine Managed Area (MMA) projects to serve as a basis for improved planning and implementation of new MMA projects worldwide. The specific objectives of the study are (1) to determine the socioeconomic, governance and ecological effects of MMAs; (2) to determine the critical factors influencing MMA effects, as well as the impact of the timing of those factors on the effects of the MMA; and (3) to provide tools for predicting MMA effects based on ecological, socioeconomic and governance variable
Stochastic Analysis of a Churn-Tolerant Structured Peer-to-Peer Scheme
We present and analyze a simple and general scheme to build a churn
(fault)-tolerant structured Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network. Our scheme shows how to
"convert" a static network into a dynamic distributed hash table(DHT)-based P2P
network such that all the good properties of the static network are guaranteed
with high probability (w.h.p). Applying our scheme to a cube-connected cycles
network, for example, yields a degree connected network, in which
every search succeeds in hops w.h.p., using messages,
where is the expected stable network size. Our scheme has an constant
storage overhead (the number of nodes responsible for servicing a data item)
and an overhead (messages and time) per insertion and essentially
no overhead for deletions. All these bounds are essentially optimal. While DHT
schemes with similar guarantees are already known in the literature, this work
is new in the following aspects:
(1) It presents a rigorous mathematical analysis of the scheme under a
general stochastic model of churn and shows the above guarantees;
(2) The theoretical analysis is complemented by a simulation-based analysis
that validates the asymptotic bounds even in moderately sized networks and also
studies performance under changing stable network size;
(3) The presented scheme seems especially suitable for maintaining dynamic
structures under churn efficiently. In particular, we show that a spanning tree
of low diameter can be efficiently maintained in constant time and logarithmic
number of messages per insertion or deletion w.h.p.
Keywords: P2P Network, DHT Scheme, Churn, Dynamic Spanning Tree, Stochastic
Analysis
Mass Bounds for the Neutral Higgs Bosons in the Next-To-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model
In the Next--To--Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM), the Higgs and
neutralino/chargino sectors are strongly correlated by four common parameters
at tree level. Therefore we analyze the experimental data from both the search
for Higgs bosons as well as for neutralinos and charginos at LEP 100 in order
to constrain the parameter space and the masses of the neutral Higgs particles
in the NMSSM. We find that small singlet vacuum expectation values are ruled
out, but a massless neutral Higgs scalar and pseudoscalar is not excluded for
most of the parameter space of the NMSSM. Improved limits from the
neutralino/chargino search at LEP 200, however, may lead to nonvanishing lower
Higgs mass bounds.Comment: 9 pages, LATEX, 6 figures (not included). The complete paper
(including figures) can be obtained via anonymous ftp at
ftp://ftp.physik.uni-wuerzburg.de/pub/preprint/WUE-ITP-95-003.ps.g
Understanding BL Lac objects Structural & kinematic mode changes in the BL Lac object PKS 0735+178
Context. We present evidence that parsec-scale jets in BL Lac objects may be
significantly distinct in kinematics from their counterparts in quasars. We
argued this previously for the BL lac sources 1803+784 and 0716+714, report
here a similar pattern for another well-known BL Lac object, PKS 0735+178,
whose nuclear jet is found to exhibit kinematics atypical of quasars. Aims. A
detailed study of the jet components' motion reveals that the standard AGN
paradigm of apparent superluminal motion does not always describe the
kinematics in BL Lac objects. We study 0735+178 here to augment and improve the
understanding of the peculiar motions in the jets of BL Lac objects as a class.
Methods. We analyzed 15 GHz VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array) observations
(2cm/MOJAVE survey) performed at 23 epochs between 1995.27 and 2008.91.
Results. We found a drastic structural mode change in the VLBI jet of 0735+178,
between 2000.4 and 2001.8 when its twice sharply bent trajectory turned into a
linear shape.We further found that this jet had undergone a similar transition
sometime between December 1981 and June 1983. A mode change, occurring in the
reverse direction (between mid-1992 and mid-1995) has already been reported in
the literature. These structural mode changes are found to be reflected in
changed kinematical behavior of the nuclear jet, manifested as an apparent
superluminal motion and stationarity of the radio knots. In addition, we found
the individual mode changes to correlate in time with the maxima in the optical
light curve. The last two transitions occurred before a (modest) radio flare.
The behavior of this pc-scale jet appears to favor a scenario involving
non-ballistic motions of the radio knots, produced by the precession of a
continuous jet within the ambient medium.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A (Abstract reduced for astro-ph
CeRuSn: heavy fermions emerging from a Kondo-insulating state
The combination of low-temperature specific-heat and
nuclear-magnetic-resonance (NMR) measurements reveals important information of
the ground-state properties of CeRuSn, which has been proposed as a
rare example of a tetragonal Kondo-insulator (KI). The NMR
spin-latticerelaxation rate deviates from the Korringa law below 100 K
signaling the onset of an energy gap K. This gap is
stable against magnetic fields up to 10 T. Below 10 K, however, unusual
low-energy excitations of in-gap states are observed, which depend strongly on
the field H. The specific heat C detects these excitations in the form of an
enhanced Sommerfeld coefficient : In zero field,
increases steeply below 5 K, reaching a maximum at 0.1 K, and then saturates at
J/molK. This maximum is shifted to higher temperatures with
increasing field suggesting a residual density of states at the Fermi level
developing a spin gap . A simple model, based on two narrow
quasiparticle bands located at the Fermi level - which cross the Fermi level in
zero field at 0.022 states/meV f.u. - can account qualitatively as well as
quantitatively for the measured observables. In particular, it is demonstrated
that fitting our data of both specific heat and NMR to the model, incorporating
a Ce magnetic moment of , leads to
the prediction of the field dependence of the gap. Our measurements rule out
the presence of a quantum critical point as the origin for the enhanced
in CeRuSn and suggest that this arises rather from correlated,
residual in-gap states at the Fermi level. This work provides a fundamental
route for future investigations into the phenomenon of narrow-gap formation in
the strongly correlated class of systemComment: 11 pages, 13 figure
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