341 research outputs found
Influence of Elastic Strains on the Adsorption Process in Porous Materials. An Experimental Approach
The experimental results presented in this paper show the influence of the
elastic deformation of porous solids on the adsorption process. With p+-type
porous silicon formed on highly boron doped (100) Si single crystal, we can
make identical porous layers, either supported by or detached from the
substrate. The pores are perpendicular to the substrate. The adsorption
isotherms corresponding to these two layers are distinct. In the region
preceding capillary condensation, the adsorbed amount is lower for the membrane
than for the supported layer and the hysteresis loop is observed at higher
pressure. We attribute this phenomenon to different elastic strains undergone
by the two layers during the adsorption process. For the supported layer, the
planes perpendicular to the substrate are constrained to have the same
interatomic spacing as that of the substrate so that the elastic deformation is
unilateral, at an atomic scale, and along the pore axis. When the substrate is
removed, tridimensional deformations occur and the porous system can find a new
configuration for the solid atoms which decreases the free energy of the system
adsorbate-solid. This results in a decrease of the adsorbed amount and in an
increase of the condensation pressure. The isotherms for the supported porous
layers shift toward that of the membrane when the layer thickness is increased
from 30 to 100 microns. This is due to the relaxation of the stress exerted by
the substrate as a result of the breaking of Si-Si bonds at the interface
between the substrate and the porous layer. The membrane is the relaxed state
of the supported layer.Comment: Accepted in Langmui
How to audit a known fraud
Illustration and photographs not included in Web versio
Adsorption in non interconnected pores open at one or at both ends: A reconsideration of the origin of the hysteresis phenomenon
We report on an experimental study of adsorption isotherme of nitrogen onto
porous silicon with non interconnected pores open at one or at both ends in
order to check for the first time the old (1938) but always current idea based
on Cohan's description which suggests that the adsorption of gaz should occur
reversibly in the first case and irreversibly in the second one. Hysteresis
loops, the shape of which is usually associated to interconnections in porous
media, are observed whether the pores are open at one or at both ends in
contradiction with Cohan's model.Comment: 5 pages, 4 EPS figure
Adsorption-Induced Deformation in Nanopores: Unexpected Results Obtained by Molecular Simulations
International audienceThe adsorption of a fluid in a nanoporous material induces deformations of the solid. The saturating regime, where the solid is filled with liquid, generally exhibits a linear relationship between the liquid pressure and the solid strain. This provides an experimental way to measure the elastic moduli of the solid walls. For large pores, the strain is determined by the pressure of the liquid saturating the pores and the mechanical properties of the porous solid. What happens at the nanometric scale, where liquid/matrix interfacial effects dominate? We have performed molecular simulations of a simple Lennard-Jones fluid confined between deformable nanoplatelets. The simulations provide the deformation of the nanopore as a function of the liquid pressure, in a way similar to what is done experimentally. The results show unexpected interface effects, which could be relevant to experimental data analysis
Effectieve gewasbescherming in substraatbedden: Systeemontsmetting en weerbaarheid
New cultivation systems should be easy to disinfect and not susceptible to pests and diseases. There are, therefore, three system disinfection methods tested. Of these, soil steaming was the quickest, cheapest and most effective in the shallow substraatbed. Soil resetting follows in second place owing to the higher cost and relatively longer treatment time. In the deep soilbeds, soil resetting is most effective. The cost is higher and the treatment time is longer than for soil steaming or culture cooking. Cultural Cooking is difficult to implement in the deep soilbed, but results in a good control of Verticillium in the shallow and the deep beds. An improvement of the level of suppressiveness against trips may be achieved with aid of mulch layer or breeding tanks for predatory mites. Applying the mulch layer improved the establishment of predatory mites. The breeding tanks caused a sharp increase. However, both methods do not lead to fewer trips. For resistance to Pythium is a large pore volume, the capacity of the substrate to carry bacteria and a high acidity (pH> 7) important. The sand that is now used in the shallow substrate bed is conducive for Pythium. The economic analysis shows that for chrysanthemum, freesia and lisianthus, the sand and soil beds may have an acceptable cost up to three percent
Direct observation of homogeneous cavitation in nanopores
We report on the evaporation of hexane from porous alumina and silicon
membranes. These membranes contain billions of independent nanopores tailored
to an ink-bottle shape, where a cavity several tens of nanometers in diameter
is separated from the bulk vapor by a constriction. For alumina membranes with
narrow enough constrictions, we demonstrate that cavity evaporation proceeds by
cavitation. Measurements of the pressure dependence of the cavitation rate
follow the predictions of the bulk, homogeneous, classical nucleation theory,
definitively establishing the relevance of homogeneous cavitation as an
evaporation mechanism in mesoporous materials. Our results imply that porous
alumina membranes are a promising new system to study liquids in a deeply
metastable state.Comment: 14 pages , 4 figures. Source files also contain Supplemental Material
(Doebele_HomogeneousCavitationMembranes_SM.pdf
WiSer: A Highly Available HTAP DBMS for IoT Applications
In a classic transactional distributed database management system (DBMS),
write transactions invariably synchronize with a coordinator before final
commitment. While enforcing serializability, this model has long been
criticized for not satisfying the applications' availability requirements. When
entering the era of Internet of Things (IoT), this problem has become more
severe, as an increasing number of applications call for the capability of
hybrid transactional and analytical processing (HTAP), where aggregation
constraints need to be enforced as part of transactions. Current systems work
around this by creating escrows, allowing occasional overshoots of constraints,
which are handled via compensating application logic.
The WiSer DBMS targets consistency with availability, by splitting the
database commit into two steps. First, a PROMISE step that corresponds to what
humans are used to as commitment, and runs without talking to a coordinator.
Second, a SERIALIZE step, that fixes transactions' positions in the
serializable order, via a consensus procedure. We achieve this split via a
novel data representation that embeds read-sets into transaction deltas, and
serialization sequence numbers into table rows. WiSer does no sharding (all
nodes can run transactions that modify the entire database), and yet enforces
aggregation constraints. Both readwrite conflicts and aggregation constraint
violations are resolved lazily in the serialized data. WiSer also covers node
joins and departures as database tables, thus simplifying correctness and
failure handling. We present the design of WiSer as well as experiments
suggesting this approach has promise
Signal Transduction Pathways in the Pentameric Ligand-Gated Ion Channels
The mechanisms of allosteric action within pentameric ligand-gated ion channels (pLGICs) remain to be determined. Using crystallography, site-directed mutagenesis, and two-electrode voltage clamp measurements, we identified two functionally relevant sites in the extracellular (EC) domain of the bacterial pLGIC from Gloeobacter violaceus (GLIC). One site is at the C-loop region, where the NQN mutation (D91N, E177Q, and D178N) eliminated inter-subunit salt bridges in the open-channel GLIC structure and thereby shifted the channel activation to a higher agonist concentration. The other site is below the C-loop, where binding of the anesthetic ketamine inhibited GLIC currents in a concentration dependent manner. To understand how a perturbation signal in the EC domain, either resulting from the NQN mutation or ketamine binding, is transduced to the channel gate, we have used the Perturbation-based Markovian Transmission (PMT) model to determine dynamic responses of the GLIC channel and signaling pathways upon initial perturbations in the EC domain of GLIC. Despite the existence of many possible routes for the initial perturbation signal to reach the channel gate, the PMT model in combination with Yen's algorithm revealed that perturbation signals with the highest probability flow travel either via the β1-β2 loop or through pre-TM1. The β1-β2 loop occurs in either intra- or inter-subunit pathways, while pre-TM1 occurs exclusively in inter-subunit pathways. Residues involved in both types of pathways are well supported by previous experimental data on nAChR. The direct coupling between pre-TM1 and TM2 of the adjacent subunit adds new insight into the allosteric signaling mechanism in pLGICs. © 2013 Mowrey et al
Possible Effects of Noncommutative Geometry on Weak CP Violation and Unitarity Triangles
Possible effects of noncommutative geometry on weak CP violation and
unitarity triangles are discussed by taking account of a simple version of the
momentum-dependent quark mixing matrix in the noncommutative standard model. In
particular, we calculate nine rephasing invariants of CP violation and
illustrate the noncommutative CP-violating effect in a couple of charged
D-meson decays. We also show how inner angles of the deformed unitarity
triangles are related to CP-violating asymmetries in some typical B_d and B_s
transitions into CP eigenstates. B-meson factories are expected to help probe
or constrain noncommutative geometry at low energies in the near future.Comment: RexTev 16 pages. Modifications made. References added. Accepted for
publication in Phys. Rev.
A Hydrophobic Gate in an Ion Channel: The Closed State of the Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor
The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) is the prototypic member of the
`Cys-loop' superfamily of ligand-gated ion channels which mediate synaptic
neurotransmission, and whose other members include receptors for glycine,
gamma-aminobutyric acid, and serotonin. Cryo-electron microscopy has yielded a
three dimensional structure of the nAChR in its closed state. However, the
exact nature and location of the channel gate remains uncertain. Although the
transmembrane pore is constricted close to its center, it is not completely
occluded. Rather, the pore has a central hydrophobic zone of radius about 3 A.
Model calculations suggest that such a constriction may form a hydrophobic
gate, preventing movement of ions through a channel. We present a detailed and
quantitative simulation study of the hydrophobic gating model of the nicotinic
receptor, in order to fully evaluate this hypothesis. We demonstrate that the
hydrophobic constriction of the nAChR pore indeed forms a closed gate.
Potential of mean force (PMF) calculations reveal that the constriction
presents a barrier of height ca. 10 kT to the permeation of sodium ions,
placing an upper bound on the closed channel conductance of 0.3 pS. Thus, a 3 A
radius hydrophobic pore can form a functional barrier to the permeation of a 1
A radius Na+ ion. Using a united atom force field for the protein instead of an
all atom one retains the qualitative features but results in differing
conductances, showing that the PMF is sensitive to the detailed molecular
interactions.Comment: Accepted by Physical Biology; includes a supplement and a
supplementary mpeg movie can be found at
http://sbcb.bioch.ox.ac.uk/oliver/download/Movies/watergate.mp
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