629 research outputs found
Differentiation of Cultured Human Epidermal Keratinocytes at High Cell Densities is Mediated by Endogenous Activation of the Protein Kinase C Signaling Pathway
Normal human epidermal keratinocytes (NHEK) grown in serum-free medium on a plastic substrate spontaneously differentiate at high cell densities in vitro. Because protein kinase C (PKC) regulates murine keratinocyte differentiation triggered by a variety of stimuli, we examined the role of this signaling pathway in density-dependent activation of NHEK differentiation. Relative to subconfluent cultures, confluent NHEK expressed markedly higher levels of multiple differentiation markers assayed by immunoblotting, including keratin 1, loricrin, filaggrin, involucrin, TGK, and SPR-1. Expression of several of these markers continued to increase for several days after cells reached confluency. The total level of several PKC isoforms was not substantially altered in NHEK harvested at different cell densities, based on immunoblotting; however, subcellular fractionation revealed that PKCα underwent a redistribution to the particulate fraction in confluent and postconfluent NHEK cultures, suggesting that this isozyme was activated under these conditions and may be involved in triggering the terminal differentiation program. Supporting this concept, inhibition of PKC function using bryostatin 1 or GF 109203X blocked the induction of keratinocyte differentiation markers at high cell densities. These data suggest that endogenous activation of PKC is responsible for cell density-mediated stimulation of NHEK differentiation, establishing a critical role for this pathway in regulating human as well as murine keratinocyte differentiation
Optimisation of Process Variables in Sintering through Statistical design of Experiments
An attempt has been made to quantify the effects of the variables on strength in sintering of iron ore/blue dust received from Bailadila, NMDC. For this, the method of design 2n factorial experiment is used to obtain a response surface equation.
Results indicate if the coke breeze increases in the range of variation of the variable in sintering, the strength increases but strength decreases when moisture increases from lower level to higher level. Blue dust
does no effect the strength.
The optimum levi (-4: variables for the maximon strength of the sinter produ(A is determined by the method of hexagonal design of experjnent. The results indicate that
for a basicity of 1.9 an acceptable quality of sinter can be produced. Blue dust amounting to 40.0% of all the iron ore fines taken together can be incorporated in the raw mixture without imparting the strength of the finished sinter
On the role of a new type of correlated disorder in extended electronic states in the Thue-Morse lattice
A new type of correlated disorder is shown to be responsible for the
appearance of extended electronic states in one-dimensional aperiodic systems
like the Thue-Morse lattice. Our analysis leads to an understanding of the
underlying reason for the extended states in this system, for which only
numerical evidence is available in the literature so far. The present work also
sheds light on the restrictive conditions under which the extended states are
supported by this lattice.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX V2.09, 1 figure (available on request), to appear in
Physical Review Letter
Extended States in a One-dimensional Generalized Dimer Model
The transmission coefficient for a one dimensional system is given in terms
of Chebyshev polynomials using the tight-binding model. This result is applied
to a system composed of two impurities located between sites of a host
lattice. It is found that the system has extended states for several values of
the energy. Analytical expressions are given for the impurity site energy in
terms of the electron's energy. The number of resonant states grows like the
number of host sites between the impurities. This property makes the system
interesting since it is a simple task to design a configuration with resonant
energy very close to the Fermi level .Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
New Insights into Properties of Large-N Holographic Thermal QCD at Finite Gauge Coupling at (the Non-Conformal/Next-to) Leading Order in N
In the context of [1]'s string theoretic dual of large-N thermal QCD-like
theories at finite gauge/string coupling (as part of the `MQGP' limit of [2]),
we discuss the following. First, up to LO in N, using the results of [3], we
show that the local T^3 of [2] is the T^2-invariant sLag of [3] in a resolved
conifold. This, together with the results of [4], shows that for a
(predominantly resolved or deformed) resolved warped deformed conifold, the
local T^3 of [2] in the MQGP limit, is the T^2-invariant sLag of [3] justifying
the construction of the delocalized SYZ type IIA mirror of the type IIB
background of [1]. Then, using the prescription of [5], we obtain the
temperature dependence of the thermal (and electrical) conductivity working up
to leading order in N (the number of D3-branes), and upon comparison with [6]
show that the results mimic a 1+1-dimensional Luttinger liquid with impurities.
Further, including sub-leading non-conformal terms in the metric determined by
M (the number of fractional D-branes = the number of colors = 3 in the IR after
the end of a Seiberg duality cascade), by looking at respectively the scalar,
vector and tensor modes of metric perturbations and using [7]'s prescription of
constructing appropriate gauge-invariant perturbations, we obtain respectively
the speed of sound, the diffusion constant and the shear viscosity \eta (and
\eta/s) including the non-conformal O((g_s M^2) (g_s N_f)/N<<1)-corrections,
N_f being the number of flavor D7-branes.Comment: 1+75 pages, LaTeX; Some corrections in Tc-related calculations,
results unchange
Magnetic properties of small Pt-capped Fe, Co and Ni clusters: A density functional theory study
Theoretical studies on M (M = Fe, Co, Ni) and MPt (for
= 3, 4, 5, 20) clusters including the spin-orbit coupling are done using
density functional theory. The magnetic anisotropy energy (MAE) along with the
spin and orbital moments are calculated for M icosahedral clusters. The
angle-dependent energy differences are modelled using an extended classical
Heisenberg model with local anisotropies. From our studies, the MAE for
Jahn-Teller distorted Fe, Mackay distorted Fe and nearly
undistorted Co clusters are found to be 322, 60 and 5 eV/atom,
respectively, and are large relative to the corresponding bulk values, (which
are 1.4 and 1.3 eV/atom for bcc Fe and fcc Co, respectively.) However, for
Ni (which practically does not show relaxation tendencies), the
calculated value of MAE is found to be 0.64 eV/atom, which is
approximately four times smaller compared to the bulk fcc Ni (2.7
eV/atom). In addition, MAE of the capped cluster (FePt) is
enhanced compared to the uncapped Jahn-Teller distorted Fe cluster
Sistema reprodutivo do cupuaçuzeiro (Theobroma grandiflorum) - alguns aspectos da morfologia floral.
Nuclei in Strongly Magnetised Neutron Star Crusts
We discuss the ground state properties of matter in outer and inner crusts of
neutron stars under the influence of strong magnetic fields. In particular, we
demonstrate the effects of Landau quantization of electrons on compositions of
neutron star crusts. First we revisit the sequence of nuclei and the equation
of state of the outer crust adopting the Baym, Pethick and Sutherland (BPS)
model in the presence of strong magnetic fields and most recent versions of the
theoretical and experimental nuclear mass tables. Next we deal with nuclei in
the inner crust. Nuclei which are arranged in a lattice, are immersed in a
nucleonic gas as well as a uniform background of electrons in the inner crust.
The Wigner-Seitz approximation is adopted in this calculation and each lattice
volume is replaced by a spherical cell. The coexistence of two phases of
nuclear matter - liquid and gas, is considered in this case. We obtain the
equilibrium nucleus corresponding to each baryon density by minimizing the free
energy of the cell. We perform this calculation using Skyrme nucleon-nucleon
interaction with different parameter sets. We find nuclei with larger mass and
charge numbers in the inner crust in the presence of strong magnetic fields
than those of the zero field case for all nucleon-nucleon interactions
considered here. However, SLy4 interaction has dramatic effects on the proton
fraction as well as masses and charges of nuclei. This may be attributed to the
behaviour of symmetry energy with density in the sub-saturation density regime.
Further we discuss the implications of our results to shear mode oscillations
of magnetars.Comment: presented in "Exciting Physics Symposium" held in Makutsi, South
Africa in November, 2011 and to be published in a book by Springer Verla
RPA calculations with Gaussian expansion method
The Gaussian expansion method (GEM) is extensively applied to the
calculations in the random-phase approximation (RPA). We adopt the
mass-independent basis-set that has been tested in the mean-field calculations.
By comparing the RPA results with those obtained by several other available
methods for Ca isotopes, using a density-dependent contact interaction and the
Woods-Saxon single-particle states, we confirm that energies, transition
strengths and widths of their distribution are described by the GEM bases to
good precision, for the , and collective states. The GEM is
then applied to the self-consistent RPA calculations with the finite-range
Gogny D1S interaction. The spurious center-of-mass motion is well separated
from the physical states in the response, and the energy-weighted sum
rules for the isoscalar transitions are fulfilled reasonably well. Properties
of low-energy transitions in Ca are argued in some detail.Comment: 30 pages including 12 figure
Mobile small polaron
Extending the Froehlich polaron problem to a discrete ionic lattice we study
a polaronic state with a small radius of the wave function but a large size of
the lattice distortion. We calculate the energy dispersion and the effective
mass of the polaron with the 1/\lambda perturbation theory and with the exact
Monte Carlo method in the nonadiabatic and adiabatic regimes, respectively. The
``small'' Froehlich polaron is found to be lighter than the small Holstein
polaron by one or more orders of magnitude.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, published versio
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