438 research outputs found
The influence of ionic strength on the adhesive bond stiffness of oral streptococci possessing different surface appendages as probed using AFM and QCM-D
Bacterial adhesion to surfaces poses threats to human-health, not always associated with adhering organisms, but often with their detachment causing contamination elsewhere. Bacterial adhesion mechanisms may not be valid for their detachment, known to proceed according to a visco-elastic mechanism. Here we aimed to investigate influences of ionic strength on the adhesive bond stiffness of two spherically shaped Streptococcus salivarius strains with different lengths of fibrillar surface appendages. The response of a Quartz-Crystal-Microbalance-with-Dissipation (QCM-D) upon streptococcal adhesion and changes in the ionic strength of the surrounding fluid indicated that the bond stiffness of S. salivarius HB7, possessing a dense layer of 91 nm long fibrils, was unaffected by ionic strength. Atomic-force-microscopic (AFM) imaging in PeakForce-QNM mode showed a small decrease in bond stiffness from 1200 to 880 kPa upon decreasing ionic strength from 57 to 5.7 mM, while Total-Internal-Reflection-Microscopy suggested a complete collapse of fibrils. S. salivarius HBV51, possessing a less dense layer of shorter (63 nm) fibrils, demonstrated a strong decrease in bond stiffness both from QCM-D and AFM upon decreasing the ionic strength, and a partial collapse of fibrils. Probably, the more hydrophobic and less negatively charged long fibrils on S. salivarius HB7 collapse side-on to the cell surface, while the more hydrophilic and negatively charged fibrils of S. salivarius HBV51 remain partially stretched. In summary, we demonstrate how a combination of different methods can yield a description of the structural changes occurring in the interfacial region between adhering, fibrillated streptococci and a substratum surface upon changing the ionic strengt
Regular black hole in three dimensions
We find a new black hole in three dimensional anti-de Sitter space by
introducing an anisotropic perfect fluid inspired by the noncommutative black
hole. This is a regular black hole with two horizons. We compare thermodynamics
of this black hole with that of non-rotating BTZ black hole. The first-law of
thermodynamics is not compatible with the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures, 3D noncommutative black hole included as Sec 4,
a version to appear in EPJ
Transition Form Factor up to within the Factorization Approach
In the paper, we apply the factorization approach to deal with the
transition form factor in the large recoil
regions. The B-meson wave functions and that include the
three-particle Fock states' contributions are adopted to give a consistent PQCD
analysis of the form factor up to . It has been found that
both the wave functions and can give sizable
contributions to the form factor and should be kept for a better understanding
of the meson decays. Then the contributions from different twist structures
of the kaon wavefunction are discussed, including the -breaking
effects. A sizable contribution from the twist-3 wave function is
found, whose model dependence is discussed by taking two group of parameters
that are determined by different distribution amplitude moments obtained in the
literature. It is also shown that and
, which are more
reasonable and consistent with the light-cone sum rule results in the large
recoil regions.Comment: 22 pages and 6 figure
Slowly rotating black holes in the Horava-Lifshitz gravity
We investigate slowly rotating black holes in the Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz (HL)
gravity. For and , we find a slowly rotating black
hole of the Kehagias-Sfetsos solution in asymptotically flat spacetimes. We
discuss their thermodynamic properties by computing mass, temperature, angular
momentum, and angular velocity on the horizon.Comment: 12 pages, no figures, version to appear in EPJ
Solving Hierarchical Constraints over Finite Domains with Local Search
National Science and Technology Board (Singapore
A single amino-acid substitution in the sodium transporter HKT1 associated with plant salt tolerance
A crucial prerequisite for plant growth and survival is the maintenance of potassium uptake, especially when high sodium surrounds the root zone. The Arabidopsis HIGH-AFFINITY K TRANSPORTER1 (HKT1), and its homologs in other salt-sensitive dicots, contributes to salinity tolerance by removing Na from the transpiration stream. However, TsHKT1;2, one of three HKT1 copies in Thellungiella salsuginea, a halophytic Arabidopsis relative, acts as a Ktransporter in the presence of Na in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Amino-acid sequence comparisons indicated differences between TsHKT1;2 and most other published HKT1 sequences with respect to an Asp residue (D207) in the second pore-loop domain. Two additional T. salsuginea and most other HKT1 sequences contain Asn (N) in this position. Wild-type TsHKT1;2 and altered AtHKT1 (AtHKT1) complemented K-uptake deficiency of yeast cells. Mutanthkt1-1 plants complemented with both AtHKT1 and TsHKT1;2 showed higher tolerance to salt stress than lines complemented by the wild-type AtHKT1. Electrophysiological analysis in Xenopus laevis oocytes confirmed the functional properties of these transporters and the differential selectivity for Na and Kbased on the N/D variance in the pore region. This change also dictated inward-rectification for Na transport. Thus, the introduction of Asp, replacing Asn, in HKT1-type transporters established altered cation selectivity and uptake dynamics. We describe one way, based on a single change in a crucial protein that enabled some crucifer species to acquire improved salt tolerance, which over evolutionary time may have resulted in further changes that ultimately facilitated colonization of saline habitats.Peer Reviewe
The “Narratives” fMRI dataset for evaluating models of naturalistic language comprehension
The “Narratives” collection aggregates a variety of functional MRI datasets collected while human subjects listened to naturalistic spoken stories. The current release includes 345 subjects, 891 functional scans, and 27 diverse stories of varying duration totaling ~4.6 hours of unique stimuli (~43,000 words). This data collection is well-suited for naturalistic neuroimaging analysis, and is intended to serve as a benchmark for models of language and narrative comprehension. We provide standardized MRI data accompanied by rich metadata, preprocessed versions of the data ready for immediate use, and the spoken story stimuli with time-stamped phoneme- and word-level transcripts. All code and data are publicly available with full provenance in keeping with current best practices in transparent and reproducible neuroimaging
Modeling the Subsurface Structure of Sunspots
While sunspots are easily observed at the solar surface, determining their
subsurface structure is not trivial. There are two main hypotheses for the
subsurface structure of sunspots: the monolithic model and the cluster model.
Local helioseismology is the only means by which we can investigate
subphotospheric structure. However, as current linear inversion techniques do
not yet allow helioseismology to probe the internal structure with sufficient
confidence to distinguish between the monolith and cluster models, the
development of physically realistic sunspot models are a priority for
helioseismologists. This is because they are not only important indicators of
the variety of physical effects that may influence helioseismic inferences in
active regions, but they also enable detailed assessments of the validity of
helioseismic interpretations through numerical forward modeling. In this paper,
we provide a critical review of the existing sunspot models and an overview of
numerical methods employed to model wave propagation through model sunspots. We
then carry out an helioseismic analysis of the sunspot in Active Region 9787
and address the serious inconsistencies uncovered by
\citeauthor{gizonetal2009}~(\citeyear{gizonetal2009,gizonetal2009a}). We find
that this sunspot is most probably associated with a shallow, positive
wave-speed perturbation (unlike the traditional two-layer model) and that
travel-time measurements are consistent with a horizontal outflow in the
surrounding moat.Comment: 73 pages, 19 figures, accepted by Solar Physic
A Mechanistic Paradigm for Broad-Spectrum Antivirals that Target Virus-Cell Fusion
10.1371/journal.ppat.1003297PLoS Pathogens94
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