244 research outputs found
Atmospheric Concentrations of Alternaria, Cladosporium, Ganoderma and Didymella Spores Monitored in Cork (Ireland) and Worcester (England) During the Summer of 2010
This study represents the first international intercomparison of fungal spore observations since 1990, focusing on atmospheric concentrations of Alternaria, Cladosporium, Ganoderma and Didymella spores. The campaigns were performed at sites located in Cork (Ireland) and Worcester (England) during summer 2010. Observations were made using Hirst-type volumetric spore traps and corresponding optical identification at the genus level by microscope. The measurements at both sites (including meteorological parameters) were compared and contrasted. The relationships between the fungal spore concentrations with selected meteorological parameters were investigated using statistical methods and multivariate regression trees (MRT). The results showed high correlations between the two sites with respect to daily variations. Statistically significant higher spore concentrations for Alternaria, Cladosporium and Ganoderma were monitored at the Worcester site. This result was most likely due to the differences in precipitation and local fungal spore sources at the two sites. Alternaria and Cladosporium reached their maxima a month earlier in Cork than in Worcester, and Didymella with Ganoderma peaked simultaneously with similar diurnal trends found for all the investigated spore types. MRT analysis helped to determine threshold values of the meteorological parameters that exerted most influence on the presence of spores: they were found to vary at the two sites. Our results suggest that the aeromycological profile is quite uniform over the British Isles, but a description of bioaerosols with respect to overall load and daily concentration can be quite diverse although the geographical difference between sites is relatively small. These variations in the concentrations therefore need to be explored at the national leve
Correlation Functions for an Elastic String in a Random Potential: Instanton Approach
We develop an instanton technique for calculations of correlation functions
characterizing statistical behavior of the elastic string in disordered media
and apply the proposed approach to correlations of string free energies
corresponding to different low-lying metastable positions. We find high-energy
tails of correlation functions for the case of long-range disorder (the
disorder correlation length well exceeds the characteristic distance between
the sequential string positions) and short-range disorder with the correlation
length much smaller then the characteristic string displacements. The former
case refers to energy distributions and correlations on the distances below the
Larkin correlation length, while the latter describes correlations on the large
spatial scales relevant for the creep dynamics.Comment: 5 pages; 1 .eps figure include
Marginal Pinning of Quenched Random Polymers
An elastic string embedded in 3D space and subject to a short-range
correlated random potential exhibits marginal pinning at high temperatures,
with the pinning length becoming exponentially sensitive to
temperature. Using a functional renormalization group (FRG) approach we find
, with the
depinning temperature. A slow decay of disorder correlations as it appears in
the problem of flux line pinning in superconductors modifies this result, .Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 1 figure inserte
Aspects of the Noisy Burgers Equation
The noisy Burgers equation describing for example the growth of an interface
subject to noise is one of the simplest model governing an intrinsically
nonequilibrium problem. In one dimension this equation is analyzed by means of
the Martin-Siggia-Rose technique. In a canonical formulation the morphology and
scaling behavior are accessed by a principle of least action in the weak noise
limit. The growth morphology is characterized by a dilute gas of nonlinear
soliton modes with gapless dispersion law with exponent z=3/2 and a superposed
gas of diffusive modes with a gap. The scaling exponents and a heuristic
expression for the scaling function follow from a spectral representation.Comment: 23 pages,LAMUPHYS LaTeX-file (Springer), 13 figures, and 1 table, to
appear in the Proceedings of the XI Max Born Symposium on "Anomalous
Diffusion: From Basics to Applications", May 20-24, 1998, Ladek Zdroj, Polan
Velocity-force characteristics of a driven interface in a disordered medium
Using a dynamic functional renormalization group treatment of driven elastic
interfaces in a disordered medium, we investigate several aspects of the
creep-type motion induced by external forces below the depinning threshold
: i) We show that in the experimentally important regime of forces
slightly below the velocity obeys an Arrhenius-type law
with an effective energy barrier
vanishing linearly when f approaches the threshold . ii) Thermal
fluctuations soften the pinning landscape at high temperatures. Determining the
corresponding velocity-force characteristics at low driving forces for internal
dimensions d=1,2 (strings and interfaces) we find a particular non-Arrhenius
type creep involving the reduced threshold
force alone. For d=3 we obtain a similar v-f characteristic which is,
however, non-universal and depends explicitly on the microscopic cutoff.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX, 3 postscript figure
Effect of spatial bias on the nonequilibrium phase transition in a system of coagulating and fragmenting particles
We examine the effect of spatial bias on a nonequilibrium system in which
masses on a lattice evolve through the elementary moves of diffusion,
coagulation and fragmentation. When there is no preferred directionality in the
motion of the masses, the model is known to exhibit a nonequilibrium phase
transition between two different types of steady states, in all dimensions. We
show analytically that introducing a preferred direction in the motion of the
masses inhibits the occurrence of the phase transition in one dimension, in the
thermodynamic limit. A finite size system, however, continues to show a
signature of the original transition, and we characterize the finite size
scaling implications of this. Our analysis is supported by numerical
simulations. In two dimensions, bias is shown to be irrelevant.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, revte
Solitons in the noisy Burgers equation
We investigate numerically the coupled diffusion-advective type field
equations originating from the canonical phase space approach to the noisy
Burgers equation or the equivalent Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation in one spatial
dimension. The equations support stable right hand and left hand solitons and
in the low viscosity limit a long-lived soliton pair excitation. We find that
two identical pair excitations scatter transparently subject to a size
dependent phase shift and that identical solitons scatter on a static soliton
transparently without a phase shift. The soliton pair excitation and the
scattering configurations are interpreted in terms of growing step and
nucleation events in the interface growth profile. In the asymmetrical case the
soliton scattering modes are unstable presumably toward multi soliton
production and extended diffusive modes, signalling the general
non-integrability of the coupled field equations. Finally, we have shown that
growing steps perform anomalous random walk with dynamic exponent z=3/2 and
that the nucleation of a tip is stochastically suppressed with respect to
plateau formation.Comment: 11 pages Revtex file, including 15 postscript-figure
Effect of Angiogenesis-Related Cytokines on Rotator Cuff Disease: The Search for Sensitive Biomarkers of Early Tendon Degeneration
Background Hallmarks of the pathogenesis of rotator cuff disease (RCD) include an abnormal immune response, angiogenesis, and altered variables of vascularity. Degenerative changes enhance production of pro-inflammatory, anti-inflammatory, and vascular angiogenesis-related cytokines (ARC) that play a pivotal role in the immune response to arthroscopic surgery and participate in the pathogenesis of RCD. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ARC profile, ie, interleukin (IL): IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), and angiogenin (ANG), in human peripheral blood serum and correlate this with early degenerative changes in patients with RCD. Methods Blood specimens were obtained from 200 patients with RCD and 200 patients seen in the orthopedic clinic for nonrotator cuff disorders. Angiogenesis imaging assays was performed using power Doppler ultrasound to evaluate variables of vascularity in the rotator cuff tendons. Expression of ARC was measured by commercial Bio-Plex Precision Pro Human Cytokine Assays. Results Baseline concentrations of IL-1β, IL-8, and VEGF was significantly higher in RCD patients than in controls. Significantly higher serum VEGF levels were found in 85% of patients with RCD, and correlated with advanced stage of disease (r = 0.75; P < 0.0005), average microvascular density (r = 0.68, P < 0.005), and visual analog score (r = 0.75, P < 0.0002) in RCD patients. ANG and IL-10 levels were significantly lower in RCD patients versus controls. IL-1β and ANG levels were significantly correlated with degenerative tendon grade in RCD patients. No difference in IL-6 and bFGF levels was observed between RCD patients and controls. Patients with degenerative changes had markedly lower ANG levels compared with controls. Power Doppler ultrasound showed high blood vessel density in patients with tendon rupture. Conclusion The pathogenesis of RCD is associated with an imbalance between pro-inflammatory, anti-inflammatory, and vascular ARC
Slow relaxation due to optimization and restructuring: Solution on a hierarchical lattice
Motivated by the large strain shear of loose granular materials we introduced
a model which consists of consecutive optimization and restructuring steps
leading to a self organization of a density field. The extensive connections to
other models of statistical phyics are discussed. We investigate our model on a
hierarchical lattice which allows an exact asymptotic renormalization
treatment. A surprisingly close analogy is observed between the simulation
results on the regular and the hierarchical lattices. The dynamics is
characterized by the breakdown of ergodicity, by unusual system size effects in
the development of the average density as well as by the age distribution, the
latter showing multifractal properties.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures revtex, submitted to PRE see also:
cond-mat/020920
- …