20,922 research outputs found
Compensating linkage for main rotor control
A compensating linkage for the rotor control system on rotary wing aircraft is described. The main rotor and transmission are isolated from the airframe structure by clastic suspension. The compensating linkage prevents unwanted signal inputs to the rotor control system caused by relative motion of the airframe structure and the main rotor and transmission
Electrostatic Steering Accelerates C3d:CR2 Association.
Electrostatic effects are ubiquitous in protein interactions and are found to be pervasive in the complement system as well. The interaction between complement fragment C3d and complement receptor 2 (CR2) has evolved to become a link between innate and adaptive immunity. Electrostatic interactions have been suggested to be the driving factor for the association of the C3d:CR2 complex. In this study, we investigate the effects of ionic strength and mutagenesis on the association of C3d:CR2 through Brownian dynamics simulations. We demonstrate that the formation of the C3d:CR2 complex is ionic strength-dependent, suggesting the presence of long-range electrostatic steering that accelerates the complex formation. Electrostatic steering occurs through the interaction of an acidic surface patch in C3d and the positively charged CR2 and is supported by the effects of mutations within the acidic patch of C3d that slow or diminish association. Our data are in agreement with previous experimental mutagenesis and binding studies and computational studies. Although the C3d acidic patch may be locally destabilizing because of unfavorable Coulombic interactions of like charges, it contributes to the acceleration of association. Therefore, acceleration of function through electrostatic steering takes precedence to stability. The site of interaction between C3d and CR2 has been the target for delivery of CR2-bound nanoparticle, antibody, and small molecule biomarkers, as well as potential therapeutics. A detailed knowledge of the physicochemical basis of C3d:CR2 association may be necessary to accelerate biomarker and drug discovery efforts
Statistical learning is not error-driven
Prediction errors have a prominent role in many forms of learning. For example, in reinforcement learning agents learn by updating the association between states and outcomes as a function of the prediction error elicited by the event. An empirical hallmark of such error-driven learning is Kamin blocking, whereby the association between a stimulus and outcome is only learnt when the outcome is not already fully predicted by another stimulus. It remains debated however to which extent error-driven computations underlie learning of automatically formed associations as in statistical learning. Here we asked whether the automatic and incidental learning of the statistical structure of the environment is error-driven, like reinforcement learning, or instead does not rely on prediction errors for learning associations. We addressed this issue in a series of Kamin blocking studies. In three consecutive experiments, we observed robust incidental statistical learning of temporal associations among pairs of images, but no evidence of blocking. Our results suggest that statistical learning is not error-driven but may rather follow the principles of basic Hebbian associative learning
Ultrafast Insulator-Metal Phase Transition in VO2 Studied by Multiterahertz Spectroscopy
The ultrafast photoinduced insulator-metal transition in VO2 is studied at
different temperatures and excitation fluences using multi-THz probe pulses.
The spectrally resolved mid-infrared response allows us to trace separately the
dynamics of lattice and electronic degrees of freedom with a time resolution of
40 fs. The critical fluence of the optical pump pulse which drives the system
into a long-lived metallic state is found to increase with decreasing
temperature. Under all measurement conditions we observe a modulation of the
eigenfrequencies of the optical phonon modes induced by their anharmonic
coupling to the coherent wave packet motion of V-V dimers at 6.1 THz.
Furthermore, we find a weak quadratic coupling of the electronic response to
the coherent dimer oscillation resulting in a modulation of the electronic
conductivity at twice the frequency of the wave packet motion. The findings are
discussed in the framework of a qualitative model based on an approximation of
local photoexcitation of the vanadium dimers from the insulating state.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures submitted to Physical Review
Frenkel Excitons in Random Systems With Correlated Gaussian Disorder
Optical absorption spectra of Frenkel excitons in random one-dimensional
systems are presented. Two models of inhomogeneous broadening, arising from a
Gaussian distribution of on-site energies, are considered. In one case the
on-site energies are uncorrelated variables whereas in the second model the
on-site energies are pairwise correlated (dimers). We observe a red shift and a
broadening of the absorption line on increasing the width of the Gaussian
distribution. In the two cases we find that the shift is the same, within our
numerical accuracy, whereas the broadening is larger when dimers are
introduced. The increase of the width of the Gaussian distribution leads to
larger differences between uncorrelated and correlated disordered models. We
suggest that this higher broadening is due to stronger scattering effects from
dimers.Comment: 9 pages, REVTeX 3.0, 3 ps figures. To appear in Physical Review
Non-perturbative Interband Response of InSb Driven Off-resonantly by Few-cycle Electromagnetic Transients
Intense multi-THz pulses are used to study the coherent nonlinear response of
bulk InSb by means of field-resolved four-wave mixing spectroscopy. At
amplitudes above 5 MV/cm the signals show a clear temporal substructure which
is unexpected in perturbative nonlinear optics. Simulations based on a
two-level quantum system demonstrate that in spite of the strongly off-resonant
character of the excitation the high-field pulses drive the interband
resonances into a non-perturbative regime of Rabi flopping.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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