Solitary vortex couples in viscoelastic Couette flow

We report experimental observation of a localized structure, which is of a new type for dissipative systems. It appears as a solitary vortex couple ("diwhirl") in Couette flow with highly elastic polymer solutions. A unique property of the diwhirls is that they are stationary, in contrast to the usual localized wave structures in both Hamiltonian and dissipative systems which are stabilized by wave dispersion. It is also a new object in fluid dynamics - a couple of vortices that build a single entity somewhat similar to a magnetic dipole. The diwhirls arise as a result of a purely elastic instability through a hysteretic transition at negligible Reynolds numbers. It is suggested that the vortex flow is driven by the same forces that cause the Weissenberg effect. The diwhirls have a striking asymmetry between the inflow and outflow, which is also an essential feature of the suggested elastic instability mechanism.Comment: 9 pages (LaTeX), 5 Postscript figures, submitte

Remote operations and interactions for systems of arbitrary dimensional Hilbert space: a state-operator approach

We present a systematic simple method for constructing deterministic remote operations on single and multiple systems of arbitrary discrete dimensionality. These operations include remote rotations, remote interactions and measurements. The resources needed for an operation on a two-level system are one ebit and a bidirectional communication of two cbits, and for an n-level system, a pair of entangled n-level particles and two classical ``nits''. In the latter case, there are $n-1$ possible distinct operations per one n-level entangled pair. Similar results apply for generating interaction between a pair of remote systems and for remote measurements. We further consider remote operations on $N$ spatially distributed systems, and show that the number of possible distinct operations increases here exponentially, with the available number of entangled pairs that are initial distributed between the systems. Our results follow from the properties of a hybrid state-operator object (``stator''), which describes quantum correlations between states and operations.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures, typo correction

Elastic turbulence in curvilinear flows of polymer solutions

Following our first report (A. Groisman and V. Steinberg, \sl Nature $\bf 405$, 53 (2000)) we present an extended account of experimental observations of elasticity induced turbulence in three different systems: a swirling flow between two plates, a Couette-Taylor (CT) flow between two cylinders, and a flow in a curvilinear channel (Dean flow). All three set-ups had high ratio of width of the region available for flow to radius of curvature of the streamlines. The experiments were carried out with dilute solutions of high molecular weight polyacrylamide in concentrated sugar syrups. High polymer relaxation time and solution viscosity ensured prevalence of non-linear elastic effects over inertial non-linearity, and development of purely elastic instabilities at low Reynolds number (Re) in all three flows. Above the elastic instability threshold, flows in all three systems exhibit features of developed turbulence. Those include: (i)randomly fluctuating fluid motion excited in a broad range of spatial and temporal scales; (ii) significant increase in the rates of momentum and mass transfer (compared to those expected for a steady flow with a smooth velocity profile). Phenomenology, driving mechanisms, and parameter dependence of the elastic turbulence are compared with those of the conventional high Re hydrodynamic turbulence in Newtonian fluids.Comment: 23 pages, 26 figure

Imprinting the memory into paste and its visualization as crack patterns in drying process

In the drying process of paste, we can imprint into the paste the order how it should be broken in the future. That is, if we vibrate the paste before it is dried, it remembers the direction of the initial external vibration, and the morphology of resultant crack patterns is determined solely by the memory of the direction. The morphological phase diagram of crack patterns and the rheological measurement of the paste show that this memory effect is induced by the plasticity of paste.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to JPS

CPEB1 restrains proliferation of Glioblastoma cells through the regulation of p27(Kip1) mRNA translation

The cytoplasmic element binding protein 1 (CPEB1) regulates many important biological processes ranging from cell cycle control to learning and memory formation, by controlling mRNA translation efficiency via 3' untranslated regions (3'UTR). In the present study, we show that CPEB1 is significantly downregulated in human Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) tissues and that the restoration of its expression impairs glioma cell lines growth. We demonstrate that CPEB1 promotes the expression of the cell cycle inhibitor p27(Kip1) by specifically targeting its 3'UTR, and competes with miR-221/222 binding at an overlapping site in the 3'UTR, thus impairing miR-221/222 inhibitory activity. Upon binding to p27(Kip1) 3'UTR, CPEB1 promotes elongation of poly-A tail and the subsequent translation of p27(Kip1) mRNA. This leads to higher levels of p27(Kip1) in the cell, in turn significantly inhibiting cell proliferation, and confers to CPEB1 a potential value as a tumor suppressor in Glioblastoma

Magnetic field correlations in a random flow with strong steady shear

We analyze magnetic kinematic dynamo in a conducting fluid where the stationary shear flow is accompanied by relatively weak random velocity fluctuations. The diffusionless and diffusion regimes are described. The growth rates of the magnetic field moments are related to the statistical characteristics of the flow describing divergence of the Lagrangian trajectories. The magnetic field correlation functions are examined, we establish their growth rates and scaling behavior. General assertions are illustrated by explicit solution of the model where the velocity field is short-correlated in time

A Review of and Perspectives on Global Change Modeling for Northern Eurasia

Northern Eurasia is made up of a complex and diverse set of physical, ecological, climatic and human systems, which provide important ecosystem services including the storage of substantial stocks of carbon in its terrestrial ecosystems. At the same time, the region has experienced dramatic climate change, natural disturbances and changes in land management practices over the past century. For these reasons, Northern Eurasia is both a critical region to understand and a complex system with substantial challenges for the modeling community. This review is designed to highlight the state of past and ongoing efforts of the research community to understand and model these environmental, socioeconomic, and climatic changes. We further aim to provide perspectives on the future direction of global change modeling to improve our understanding of the role of Northern Eurasia in the coupled human-Earth system. Major modeling efforts have shown that environmental and socioeconomic impacts in Northern Eurasia can have major implications for the biodiversity, ecosystems services, environmental sustainability, and carbon cycle of the region, and beyond. These impacts have the potential to feedback onto and alter the global Earth system. We find that past and ongoing studies have largely focused on specific components of Earth system dynamics and have not systematically examined their feedbacks to the global Earth system and to society. We identify the crucial role of Earth system models in advancing our understanding of feedbacks within the region and with the global system. We further argue for the need for Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), a suite of models that couple human activity models to Earth system models, which are key to address many emerging issues that require a representation of the coupled human-Earth system.We acknowledge the funding from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Land-Cover and Land-Use Change (LCLUC) Program, which provided support for Erwan Monier, David Kicklighter, Andrei Sokolov, Qianlai Zhuang and Sergey Paltsev under grant NNX14AD91G and Irina Sokolik under grant NNX14AD88G. Support for Pavel Groisman was provided by Grant 14.B25.31.0026 of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and by Project “Arctic Climate Change and its Impact on Environment, Infrastructures, and Resource Availability” sponsored by ANR (France), RFBR (Russia), and NSF (USA) in response to Belmont Forum Collaborative Research Action on Arctic Observing and Research for Sustainability. The Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change is funded by a number of federal agencies and a consortium of 40 industrial and foundation sponsor (for the complete list see http://globalchange.mit.edu/sponsors)

High-level expression and large-scale preparation of soluble HBx antigen from Escherichia coli

The HBx (hepatitis B virus X protein) is a multifunctional regulator of cellular signal transduction and transcription pathways in host-infected cells. Evidence suggests that HBx has a critical role in the pathogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma. However, the lack of efficient large-scale preparation methods for soluble HBx has hindered studies on the structure and function of HBx. Here, a new pMAL-c2x protein fusion and purification system was used for high-level expression of soluble HBx fusion protein. The high-purity fusion protein was obtained via amylose resin chromatography and Q-Sepharose chromatography. The untagged HBx was efficiently and rapidly purified by Sephadex G-75 chromatography after cleavage by Factor Xa at 23 °C. The purity of active HBx protein was >99% with a very stable secondary structure dominated by α-helix, β-sheet and random structure. The purified HBx protein can be analysed to determine its crystal structure and function and its capabilities as an effective immunogen

Continuity of the Maximum-Entropy Inference

We study the inverse problem of inferring the state of a finite-level quantum system from expected values of a fixed set of observables, by maximizing a continuous ranking function. We have proved earlier that the maximum-entropy inference can be a discontinuous map from the convex set of expected values to the convex set of states because the image contains states of reduced support, while this map restricts to a smooth parametrization of a Gibbsian family of fully supported states. Here we prove for arbitrary ranking functions that the inference is continuous up to boundary points. This follows from a continuity condition in terms of the openness of the restricted linear map from states to their expected values. The openness condition shows also that ranking functions with a discontinuous inference are typical. Moreover it shows that the inference is continuous in the restriction to any polytope which implies that a discontinuity belongs to the quantum domain of non-commutative observables and that a geodesic closure of a Gibbsian family equals the set of maximum-entropy states. We discuss eight descriptions of the set of maximum-entropy states with proofs of accuracy and an analysis of deviations.Comment: 34 pages, 1 figur

Simplified instantaneous non-local quantum computation with applications to position-based cryptography

Instantaneous measurements of non-local observables between space-like separated regions can be performed without violating causality. This feat relies on the use of entanglement. Here we propose novel protocols for this task and the related problem of multipartite quantum computation with local operations and a single round of classical communication. Compared to previously known techniques, our protocols reduce the entanglement consumption by an exponential amount. We also prove a linear lower bound on the amount of entanglement required for the implementation of a certain non-local measurement. These results relate to position-based cryptography: an amount of entanglement scaling exponentially in the number of communicated qubits is sufficient to render any such scheme insecure. Furthermore, we show that certain schemes are secure under the assumption that the adversary has less entanglement than a given linear bound and is restricted to classical communication.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures. V2: clarified results of the crypto section, improved readabilit