1,707 research outputs found
Disposal of Household Wastewater in Soils of High Stone Content (1977-1980)
Two experimental septic tank filter fields were constructed with built-in monitoring equipment in Nixa soils. These soils contain many chert fragments and a fragipan about 60 cm deep which restricts downward water movement and is the design-limiting feature. The standard filter field (76 cm deep) was built into the fragipan and the modified standard filter field (30 cm deep) was placed above it. During 30 months\u27 observation, the modified standard performed better than the standard filter field. Maximum rise of effluent in the standard and modified standard came within 11 and 19 cm of the soil surface, respectively. Performance of these systems indicates filter fields should be designed to function during climatic stresses, i.e. when the soil has a maximum hydraulic load and surfacing may occur. Filter fields should be designed to withstand a stress period of specified intensity. The filter fields in this study were observed under less than normal stress. Therefore, their long range performance is less clear. Our observations indicate that filter field performance is related more to rates of water movement than to stone content. Major influences on filter field performance are rates and directions of water movement, stress period intensity, designs, and construction techniques
C-axis Optical Sum Rule in Josephson Coupled Vortex State
Observed violations of the -axis optical sum rule can give important
information on deviations from in-plane Fermi liquid behavior and on the nature
of interlayer coupling between adjacent copper oxide planes. Application of a
magnetic field perpendicular to these planes is another way to probe in-plane
dynamics. We find that the optical sum rule is considerably modified in the
presence of the -axis magnetic field. Interlayer correlation of pancake
vortices is involved in the sum rule modification; however, details of the
vortex distribution in the plane are less important.Comment: one figure. To be published in PRB (Sep. 20001
Cost performance and risk in the construction of offshore and onshore wind farms
This article investigates the risk of cost overruns and underruns occurring in the construction of 51 onshore and offshore wind farms commissioned between 2000 and 2015 in 13 countries. In total, these projects required about 63 million per windfarm, although 20 projects within the sample (39%) did not exhibit cost overruns. The majority of onshore wind farms exhibit cost underruns while for offshore wind farms the results have a larger spread. Interestingly, no significant relationship exists between the size (in total MWor per individual turbine capacity) of a windfarm and the severity of a cost overrun. Nonetheless, there is an indication that the risk increases for larger wind farms at greater distances offshore using new types of turbines and foundations. Overall, the mean cost escalation for onshore projects is 1.7% and 9.6% for offshore projects, amounts much lower than those for other energy infrastructure
Spin-Wave Theory of the Spiral Phase of the t-J Model
A graded H.P,realization of the SU(2|1) algebra is proposed.A spin-wave
theory with a condition that the sublattice magnetization is zero is
discussed.The long-range spiral phase is investigated.The spin-spin correlator
is calculated.Comment: 17 page
Magnon-Paramagnon Effective Theory of Itinerant Ferromagnets
The present work is devoted to the derivation of an effective
magnon-paramagnon theory starting from a microscopic lattice model of
ferromagnetic metals. For some values of the microscopic parameters it
reproduces the Heisenberg theory of localized spins. For small magnetization
the effective model describes the physics of weak ferromagnets in accordance
with the experimental results. It is written in a way which keeps O(3) symmetry
manifest,and describes both the order and disordered phases of the system.
Analytical expression for the Curie temperature,which takes the magnon
fluctuations into account exactly, is obtained. For weak ferromagnets is
well below the Stoner's critical temperature and the critical temperature
obtained within Moriya's theory.Comment: 14 pages, changed content,new result
Impact of patient global assessment on achieving remission in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: A multinational study using the METEOR database
OBJECTIVE: There is an ongoing debate about excluding patient's global assessment (PtGA) from composite and Boolean-based definitions of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) remission. This study aimed at determining the influence of PtGA on RA disease states, exploring differences across countries, and understanding the association between PtGA, measures of disease impact (symptoms), and markers of disease activity (inflammation). METHODS: Cross-sectional data from the Measurement of Efficacy of Treatment in the Era of Outcome in Rheumatology international database were used. We calculated the proportion of patients failing American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism Boolean-based remission (4-variable remission) solely due to PtGA (PtGA-near-remission) in the overall sample and in the most representative countries (i.e., those with >3,000 patients in the database). Multivariable linear regression models were used to identify the main determinants of PtGA, grouped in predominantly inflammatory impact factors (28 tender joint counts, 28 swollen joint counts, and C-reactive protein level) and disease impact factors (pain and function). RESULTS: This study included 27,768 patients. Excluding PtGA from the Boolean-based definition (3-variable remission) increased the remission rate from 5.8% to 15.8%. The rate of PtGA-near-remission varied considerably between countries, from 1.7% in India to 17.9% in Portugal. One-third of the patients in PtGA-near-remission group scored PtGA >4 of 10. Pain and function were the main correlates of PtGA, with inflammation-related variables contributing less to the model (R2 = 0.57). CONCLUSION: PtGA is moderately related to joint inflammation overall, but only weakly so in low levels of disease activity. A considerable proportion of patients otherwise in biologic remission still perceive high PtGA, putting them at risk of excessive immunosuppressive treatment
Emergence of hyperons in failed supernovae: trigger of the black hole formation
We investigate the emergence of strange baryons in the dynamical collapse of
a non-rotating massive star to a black hole by the neutrino-radiation
hydrodynamical simulations in general relativity. By following the dynamical
formation and collapse of nascent proto-neutron star from the gravitational
collapse of a 40Msun star adopting a new hyperonic EOS table, we show that the
hyperons do not appear at the core bounce but populate quickly at ~0.5-0.7 s
after the bounce to trigger the re-collapse to a black hole. They start to show
up off center owing to high temperatures and later prevail at center when the
central density becomes high enough. The neutrino emission from the accreting
proto-neutron star with the hyperonic EOS stops much earlier than the
corresponding case with a nucleonic EOS while the average energies and
luminosities are quite similar between them. These features of neutrino signal
are a potential probe of the emergence of new degrees of freedom inside the
black hole forming collapse.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
Why highly expressed proteins evolve slowly
Much recent work has explored molecular and population-genetic constraints on
the rate of protein sequence evolution. The best predictor of evolutionary rate
is expression level, for reasons which have remained unexplained. Here, we
hypothesize that selection to reduce the burden of protein misfolding will
favor protein sequences with increased robustness to translational missense
errors. Pressure for translational robustness increases with expression level
and constrains sequence evolution. Using several sequenced yeast genomes,
global expression and protein abundance data, and sets of paralogs traceable to
an ancient whole-genome duplication in yeast, we rule out several confounding
effects and show that expression level explains roughly half the variation in
Saccharomyces cerevisiae protein evolutionary rates. We examine causes for
expression's dominant role and find that genome-wide tests favor the
translational robustness explanation over existing hypotheses that invoke
constraints on function or translational efficiency. Our results suggest that
proteins evolve at rates largely unrelated to their functions, and can explain
why highly expressed proteins evolve slowly across the tree of life.Comment: 40 pages, 3 figures, with supporting informatio
Non equilibrium effects in fragmentation
We study, using molecular dynamics techniques, how boundary conditions affect
the process of fragmentation of finite, highly excited, Lennard-Jones systems.
We analyze the behavior of the caloric curves (CC), the associated thermal
response functions (TRF) and cluster mass distributions for constrained and
unconstrained hot drops. It is shown that the resulting CC's for the
constrained case differ from the one in the unconstrained case, mainly in the
presence of a ``vapor branch''. This branch is absent in the free expanding
case even at high energies . This effect is traced to the role played by the
collective expansion motion. On the other hand, we found that the recently
proposed characteristic features of a first order phase transition taking place
in a finite isolated system, i.e. abnormally large kinetic energy fluctuations
and a negative branch in the TRF, are present for the constrained (dilute) as
well the unconstrained case. The microscopic origin of this behavior is also
analyzed.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure
Oncogenic D816V-KIT signaling in mast cells causes persistent IL-6 production
Persistent dysregulation of IL-6 production and signaling have been implicated in the pathology of various cancers. In systemic mastocytosis, increased serum levels of IL-6 associate with disease severity and progression, although the mechanisms involved are not well understood. Since systemic mastocytosis often associates with the presence in hematopoietic cells of a somatic gain-of-function variant in KIT, D816V-KIT, we examined its potential role in IL-6 upregulation. Bone marrow mononuclear cultures from patients with greater D816V allelic burden released increased amounts of IL-6 which correlated with the percentage of mast cells in the cultures. Intracellular IL-6 staining by flow cytometry and immunofluorescence was primarily associated with mast cells and suggested a higher percentage of IL-6 positive mast cells in patients with higher D816V allelic burden. Furthermore, mast cell lines expressing D816V-KIT, but not those expressing normal KIT or other KIT variants, produced constitutively high IL-6 amounts at the message and protein levels. We further demonstrate that aberrant KIT activity and signaling are critical for the induction of IL-6 and involve STAT5 and PI3K pathways but not STAT3 or STAT4. Activation of STAT5A and STATB downstream of D816V-KIT was mediated by JAK2 but also by MEK/ERK1/2, which not only promoted STAT5 phosphorylation but also its long-term transcription. Our study thus supports a role for mast cells and D816V-KIT activity in IL-6 dysregulation in mastocytosis and provides insights into the intracellular mechanisms. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the physiopathology of mastocytosis and suggest the importance of therapeutic targeting of these pathwaysThis work was supported by the Division of Intramural
Research within the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases (NIAID), at the National Institutes of Health.S
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