2,411 research outputs found
Role of thermal friction in relaxation of turbulent Bose-Einstein condensates
In recent experiments, the relaxation dynamics of highly oblate, turbulent
Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) was investigated by measuring the vortex decay
rates in various sample conditions [Phys. Rev. A , 063627 (2014)] and,
separately, the thermal friction coefficient for vortex motion was
measured from the long-time evolution of a corotating vortex pair in a BEC
[Phys. Rev. A , 051601(R) (2015)]. We present a comparative analysis of
the experimental results, and find that the vortex decay rate is
almost linearly proportional to . We perform numerical simulations of
the time evolution of a turbulent BEC using a point-vortex model equipped with
longitudinal friction and vortex-antivortex pair annihilation, and observe that
the linear dependence of on is quantitatively accounted for
in the dissipative point-vortex model. The numerical simulations reveal that
thermal friction in the experiment was too strong to allow for the emergence of
a vortex-clustered state out of decaying turbulence.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Metastable hard-axis polar state of a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate under a magnetic field gradient
We investigate the stability of a hard-axis polar state in a spin-1
antiferromagnetic Bose-Einstein condensate under a magnetic field gradient,
where the easy-plane spin anisotropy is controlled by a negative quadratic
Zeeman energy . In a uniform magnetic field, the axial polar state is
dynamically unstable and relaxes into the planar polar ground state. However,
under a field gradient , the excited spin state becomes metastable down to
a certain threshold and as decreases below , its intrinsic
dynamical instability is rapidly recalled. The incipient spin excitations in
the relaxation dynamics appear with stripe structures, indicating the
rotational symmetry breaking by the field gradient. We measure the dependences
of on and the sample size, and we find that is highly
sensitive to the field gradient in the vicinity of , exhibiting power-law
behavior of with . Our results
demonstrate the significance of the field gradient effect in the quantum
critical dynamics of spinor condensates.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure
Observation of vortex-antivortex pairing in decaying 2D turbulence of a superfluid gas
In a two-dimensional (2D) classical fluid, a large-scale flow structure
emerges out of turbulence, which is known as the inverse energy cascade where
energy flows from small to large length scales. An interesting question is
whether this phenomenon can occur in a superfluid, which is inviscid and
irrotational by nature. Atomic Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of highly
oblate geometry provide an experimental venue for studying 2D superfluid
turbulence, but their full investigation has been hindered due to a lack of the
circulation sign information of individual quantum vortices in a turbulent
sample. Here, we demonstrate a vortex sign detection method by using Bragg
scattering, and we investigate decaying turbulence in a highly oblate BEC at
low temperatures, with our lowest being , where is the
superfluid critical temperature. We observe that weak spatial pairing between
vortices and antivortices develops in the turbulent BEC, which corresponds to
the vortex-dipole gas regime predicted for high dissipation. Our results
provide a direct quantitative marker for the survey of various 2D turbulence
regimes in the BEC system.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure
Seasonal Prevalence of Mosquitoes, Including Vectors of Brugian Filariasis, in Southern Islands of the Republic of Korea
A survey of mosquitoes, including the vector status of Brugia malayi filariasis and their relative larval density, was conducted from 2002 to 2005 at several southern remote islands of Jeollanam-do (province), Gyeongsangnam-do, and Jeju-do, Korea, where filariasis was previously endemic. Overall, a total of 9 species belonging to 7 genera were collected. Ochlerotatus togoi (formerly known as Aedes togoi), Anopheles (Hyrcanus) group, and Culex pipiens were the predominant species captured at all areas. Oc. togoi larvae were most frequently collected at salinity levels <0.5% during June and July, with densities decreasing sharply during the rainy season in August. The most likely explanation for the eradication of filariasis in these areas is suggested to be an aggressive treatment program executed during the 1970s and the 1990s. However, high prevalence of the vector mosquitoes may constitute a potential risk for reemerging of brugian filariasis in these areas
Quality characteristics of rice inoculated with Inonotus obliquus mycelia and incubated under different cultivating conditions
This study was performed to investigate the quality characteristics of Inonotus obliquus mycelia rice incubated with I. obliquus (KCTC 256152). Different volumes of mycelial culture of I. obliquus were used for production of I. obliquus mycelia rice. Twenty percent of the mycelial culture was added to rice and designated as IOR-20, 30% as IOR-30 and 40% as IOR-40. Using the I. obliquus mycelia rice, the contents of β-1,3-glucan, betulin, total polyphenol and 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazol (DPPH) radical scavenging activity, Hunter`s color values, free amino acid content, and mineral content were investigated. The β-1,3-glucan content in I. obliquus mycelia rice were in the order of IOR-30(729.7 μg/g) > IOR-20(716.0 μg/g) > IOR-40(690.5 μg/g) and those of betulin content were OR-30(1273.7 μg/g) > IOR-40 (1247.81 μg/g) > IOR-20 (1209.82 μg/g). The highest content of total polyphenols (353.6 μg/g) and activity of DPPH radical scavenging were observed in the IOR-30. The higher contents for β-1,3-glucan, betulin, polyphenol, and DPPH radical scavenging were found in 30% mycelial culture treatment, showing the best condition for the production of I. obliquus mycelia. Aspartic acid (10.28 to 29.44 μg/100 g), threonine (5.43 to 11.00 μg/100 g), serine (8.84 to 14.53 μg/100 g), glutamic acid (31.01 to 53.61 μg/100 g), glycine (4.77 to 10.26 μg/100 g), valine (2.93 to 6.57 μg/100 g), and lysine (5.20 to 14.41 μg/100 g) contents were determined in the I. obliquus mycelia rice and the order was as follows; IOR-20>IOR-30>IOR-40. The IOR-30 sample exhibited the highest levels of K(899.1±8.1 mg/kg), Mg(427.3±9.3 mg/kg), Ca(480.2±6.9 mg/kg), Na(296.1±9.2 mg/kg).Keywords: Rice, Inonotus obliquus (KCTC 256152), β-1,3-glucan, betulin, quality characteristicsAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(33), pp. 5131-513
The Expression of AGO2 and DGCR8 in Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss
ObjectivesThe microRNAs have been implicated in the development and function of the inner ear, especially in contribution to hearing. However, the impact of idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) on expression of miRNA biogenesis-related components has not been established. To investigate the regulations of microRNA (miRNA) biogenesis-related components, argonaute 2 (AGO2) and DiGeorge syndrome critical region gene 8 (DGCR8) mRNA expression in SSNHL and to evaluate the value of clinical parameters on their expression.MethodsThirty-seven patients diagnosed with SSNHL and fifty-one healthy volunteers were included in this study. We measured mRNA expression levels of AGO2 and DGCR8 in whole blood cells but erythrocytes of patients with SSNHL and controls, using reverse transcription and real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis.ResultsThe mRNA expression level of AGO2 is upregulated in SSNHL. The expression level of AGO2 was significantly correlated with that of DGCR8 in both patients with SSNHL and controls. Expression level of AGO2 in SSNHL was correlated with white blood cell counts.ConclusionThis study demonstrated for the first time that the AGO2 mRNA expression level was upregulated in SSNHL, suggesting its important role in pathobiology of SSNHL development
Volumetric Lung Nodule Segmentation using Adaptive ROI with Multi-View Residual Learning
Accurate quantification of pulmonary nodules can greatly assist the early
diagnosis of lung cancer, which can enhance patient survival possibilities. A
number of nodule segmentation techniques have been proposed, however, all of
the existing techniques rely on radiologist 3-D volume of interest (VOI) input
or use the constant region of interest (ROI) and only investigate the presence
of nodule voxels within the given VOI. Such approaches restrain the solutions
to investigate the nodule presence outside the given VOI and also include the
redundant structures into VOI, which may lead to inaccurate nodule
segmentation. In this work, a novel semi-automated approach for 3-D
segmentation of nodule in volumetric computerized tomography (CT) lung scans
has been proposed. The proposed technique can be segregated into two stages, at
the first stage, it takes a 2-D ROI containing the nodule as input and it
performs patch-wise investigation along the axial axis with a novel adaptive
ROI strategy. The adaptive ROI algorithm enables the solution to dynamically
select the ROI for the surrounding slices to investigate the presence of nodule
using deep residual U-Net architecture. The first stage provides the initial
estimation of nodule which is further utilized to extract the VOI. At the
second stage, the extracted VOI is further investigated along the coronal and
sagittal axis with two different networks and finally, all the estimated masks
are fed into the consensus module to produce the final volumetric segmentation
of nodule. The proposed approach has been rigorously evaluated on the LIDC
dataset, which is the largest publicly available dataset. The result suggests
that the approach is significantly robust and accurate as compared to the
previous state of the art techniques.Comment: The manuscript is currently under review and copyright shall be
transferred to the publisher upon acceptanc
Evaluation of the brain activation induced by functional electrical stimulation and voluntary contraction using functional magnetic resonance imaging
BACKGROUND: To observe brain activation induced by functional electrical stimulation, voluntary contraction, and the combination of both using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). METHODS: Nineteen healthy young men were enrolled in the study. We employed a typical block design that consisted of three sessions: voluntary contraction only, functional electrical stimulation (FES)-induced wrist extension, and finally simultaneous voluntary and FES-induced movement. MRI acquisition was performed on a 3.0 T MR system. To investigate activation in each session, one-sample t-tests were performed after correcting for false discovery rate (FDR; p < 0.05). To compare FES-induced movement and combined contraction, a two-sample t-test was performed using a contrast map (p < 0.01). RESULTS: In the voluntary contraction alone condition, brain activation was observed in the contralateral primary motor cortex (MI), thalamus, bilateral supplementary motor area (SMA), primary sensory cortex (SI), secondary somatosensory motor cortex (SII), caudate, and cerebellum (mainly ipsilateral). During FES-induced wrist movement, brain activation was observed in the contralateral MI, SI, SMA, thalamus, ipsilateral SII, and cerebellum. During FES-induced movement combined with voluntary contraction, brain activation was found in the contralateral MI, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), SMA, ipsilateral cerebellum, bilateral SII, and SI. The activated brain regions (number of voxels) of the MI, SI, cerebellum, and SMA were largest during voluntary contraction alone and smallest during FES alone. SII-activated brain regions were largest during voluntary contraction combined with FES and smallest during FES contraction alone. The brain activation extent (maximum t score) of the MI, SI, and SII was largest during voluntary contraction alone and smallest during FES alone. The brain activation extent of the cerebellum and SMA during voluntary contraction alone was similar during FES combined with voluntary contraction; however, cerebellum and SMA activation during FES movement alone was smaller than that of voluntary contraction alone or voluntary contraction combined with FES. Between FES movement alone and combined contraction, activated regions and extent due to combined contraction was significantly higher than that of FES movement alone in the ipsilateral cerebellum and the contralateral MI and SI. CONCLUSIONS: Voluntary contraction combined with FES may be more effective for brain activation than FES-only movements for rehabilitation therapy. In addition, voluntary effort is the most important factor in the therapeutic process
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