123 research outputs found
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Tunable chirality of noncentrosymmetric magnetic Weyl semimetals in rare-earth carbides
Even if Weyl semimetals are characterized by quasiparticles with well-defined chirality, exploiting this experimentally is severely hampered by Weyl lattice fermions coming in pairs with opposite chirality, typically causing the net chirality picked up by experimental probes to vanish. Here, we show this issue can be circumvented in a controlled manner when both time-reversal- and inversion symmetry are broken. To this end, we investigate chirality disbalance in the carbide family RMC2 (R a rare-earth and M a transition metal), showing several members to be Weyl semimetals. Using the noncentrosymmetric ferromagnet NdRhC2 as an illustrating example, we show that an odd number of Weyl nodes can be stabilized at its Fermi surface by properly tilting its magnetization. The chiral configuration endows a topological phase transition as the Weyl node transitions across the Fermi sheets, which triggers interesting chiral electromagnetic responses. Further, the tilt direction determines the sign of the resulting net chirality, opening up a simple route to control its sign and strength
Thermodynamics as a nonequilibrium path integral
Thermodynamics is a well developed tool to study systems in equilibrium but
no such general framework is available for non-equilibrium processes. Only hope
for a quantitative description is to fall back upon the equilibrium language as
often done in biology. This gap is bridged by the work theorem. By using this
theorem we show that the Barkhausen-type non-equilibrium noise in a process,
repeated many times, can be combined to construct a special matrix
whose principal eigenvector provides the equilibrium distribution. For an
interacting system , and hence the equilibrium distribution, can be
obtained from the free case without any requirement of equilibrium.Comment: 15 pages, 5 eps files. Final version to appear in J Phys.
Tunable chirality of noncentrosymmetric magnetic Weyl semimetals
Even if Weyl semimetals are characterized by quasiparticles with well-defined
chirality, exploiting this experimentally is severely hampered by Weyl
lattice-fermions coming in pairs with opposite chirality, typically causing the
net chirality picked up by experimental probes to vanish. Here we show this
issue can be circumvented in a controlled manner when both time-reversal- and
inversion- symmetry are broken. To this end, we investigate
chirality-disbalance in the carbide family RMC (R a rare-earth and M a
transition metal), showing several members to be Weyl semimetals. Using the
noncentrosymmetric ferromagnet NdRhC as an illustrating example, we show
that an odd number of Weyl nodes can be stabilized at its Fermi surface by
properly tilting its magnetization. The tilt direction determines the sign of
the resulting net chirality, opening up a simple route to control it.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, and Supplemental Informatio
Statistics of leading digits leads to unification of quantum correlations
We show that the frequency distribution of the first significant digits of
the numbers in the data sets generated from a large class of measures of
quantum correlations, which are either entanglement measures, or belong to the
information-theoretic paradigm, exhibit a universal behaviour. In particular,
for Haar uniformly simulated arbitrary two-qubit states, we find that the
first-digit distribution corresponding to a collection of chosen computable
quantum correlation quantifiers tend to follow the first-digit law, known as
the Benford's law, when the rank of the states increases. Considering a
two-qubit state which is obtained from a system governed by paradigmatic spin
Hamiltonians, namely, the XY model in a transverse field, and the XXZ model, we
show that entanglement as well as information theoretic measures violate the
Benford's law. We quantitatively discuss the violation of the Benford's law by
using a violation parameter, and demonstrate that the violation parameter can
signal quantum phase transitions occurring in these models. We also comment on
the universality of the statistics of first significant digits corresponding to
appropriate measures of quantum correlations in the case of multipartite
systems as well as systems in higher dimensions.Comment: v1: 11 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables; v2: 11 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables,
new results added, extended version of the published pape
Classical integrability in the BTZ black hole
Using the fact the BTZ black hole is a quotient of AdS_3 we show that
classical string propagation in the BTZ background is integrable. We construct
the flat connection and its monodromy matrix which generates the non-local
charges. From examining the general behaviour of the eigen values of the
monodromy matrix we determine the set of integral equations which constrain
them. These equations imply that each classical solution is characterized by a
density function in the complex plane. For classical solutions which correspond
to geodesics and winding strings we solve for the eigen values of the monodromy
matrix explicitly and show that geodesics correspond to zero density in the
complex plane. We solve the integral equations for BMN and magnon like
solutions and obtain their dispersion relation. Finally we show that the set of
integral equations which constrain the eigen values of the monodromy matrix can
be identified with the continuum limit of the Bethe equations of a twisted
SL(2, R) spin chain at one loop.Comment: 45 pages, Reference added, typos corrected, discussion on geodesics
improved to include all geodesic
Expression and analysis of the glycosylation properties of recombinant human erythropoietin expressed in Pichia pastoris
The Pichia pastoris expression system was used to produce recombinant human erythropoietin, a protein synthesized by the adult kidney and responsible for the regulation of red blood cell production. The entire recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) gene was constructed using the Splicing by Overlap Extension by PCR (SOE-PCR) technique, cloned and expressed through the secretory pathway of the Pichia expression system. Recombinant erythropoietin was successfully expressed in P. pastoris. The estimated molecular mass of the expressed protein ranged from 32 kDa to 75 kDa, with the variation in size being attributed to the presence of rhEPO glycosylation analogs. A crude functional analysis of the soluble proteins showed that all of the forms were active in vivo
Kinetic modeling studies of heterogeneously catalyzed biodiesel synthesis reactions
The heterogeneously catalyzed transesterification reaction for the production of biodiesel from triglycerides was investigated for reaction mechanism and kinetic constants. Three elementary reaction mechanisms Eley-Rideal (ER), Langmuir-Hinshelwood-Hougen-Watson (LHHW), and Hattori with assumptions, such as quasi-steady-state conditions for the surface species and methanol adsorption, and surface reactions as the rate-determining steps were applied to predict the catalyst surface coverage and the bulk concentration using a multiscale simulation framework. The rate expression based on methanol adsorption as the rate limiting in LHHW elementary mechanism has been found to be statistically the most reliable representation of the experimental data using hydrotalcite catalyst with different formulations
Microarray gene expression profiling and analysis in renal cell carcinoma
BACKGROUND: Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most common cancer in adult kidney. The accuracy of current diagnosis and prognosis of the disease and the effectiveness of the treatment for the disease are limited by the poor understanding of the disease at the molecular level. To better understand the genetics and biology of RCC, we profiled the expression of 7,129 genes in both clear cell RCC tissue and cell lines using oligonucleotide arrays. METHODS: Total RNAs isolated from renal cell tumors, adjacent normal tissue and metastatic RCC cell lines were hybridized to affymatrix HuFL oligonucleotide arrays. Genes were categorized into different functional groups based on the description of the Gene Ontology Consortium and analyzed based on the gene expression levels. Gene expression profiles of the tissue and cell line samples were visualized and classified by singular value decomposition. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction was performed to confirm the expression alterations of selected genes in RCC. RESULTS: Selected genes were annotated based on biological processes and clustered into functional groups. The expression levels of genes in each group were also analyzed. Seventy-four commonly differentially expressed genes with more than five-fold changes in RCC tissues were identified. The expression alterations of selected genes from these seventy-four genes were further verified using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Detailed comparison of gene expression patterns in RCC tissue and RCC cell lines shows significant differences between the two types of samples, but many important expression patterns were preserved. CONCLUSIONS: This is one of the initial studies that examine the functional ontology of a large number of genes in RCC. Extensive annotation, clustering and analysis of a large number of genes based on the gene functional ontology revealed many interesting gene expression patterns in RCC. Most notably, genes involved in cell adhesion were dominantly up-regulated whereas genes involved in transport were dominantly down-regulated. This study reveals significant gene expression alterations in key biological pathways and provides potential insights into understanding the molecular mechanism of renal cell carcinogenesis
A framework for increasing the availability of life cycle inventory data based on the role of multinational companies
Purpose
The aim of the paper is to assesses the role and effectiveness of a proposed novel strategy for Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data collection in the food sector and associated supply chains. The study represents one of the first of its type and provides answers to some of the key questions regarding the data collection process developed, managed and implemented by a multinational food company across the supply chain.
Methods
An integrated LCI data collection process for confectionery products was developed and implemented by Nestlé, a multinational food company. Some of the key features includes: (1) management and implementation by a multinational food company, (2) types of roles to manage, provide and facilitate data exchange, (3) procedures to identify key products, suppliers and customers, (4) LCI questionnaire and cover letter, and (5) data quality management based on the pedigree matrix. Overall, the combined features in an integrated framework provides a new way of thinking about the collection of LCI data from the perspective of a multinational food company.
Results
The integrated LCI collection framework spanned across five months and resulted in 87 new LCI datasets for confectionery products from raw material, primary resource use, emission and waste release data collected from suppliers across 19 countries. The data collected was found to be of medium-to-high quality compared with secondary data. However, for retailers and waste service companies only partially completed questionnaires were returned. Some of the key challenges encountered during the collection and creation of data included: lack of experience, identifying key actors, communication and technical language, commercial compromise, confidentiality protection, and complexity of multi-tiered supplier systems. A range of recommendations are proposed to reconcile these challenges which include: standardisation of environmental data from suppliers, concise and targeted LCI questionnaires, and visualising complexity through drawings.
Conclusions
The integrated LCI data collection process and strategy has demonstrated the potential role of a multinational company to quickly engage and act as a strong enabler to unlock latent data for various aspects of the confectionery supply chain. Overall, it is recommended that the research findings serve as the foundations to transition towards a standardised procedure which can practically guide other multinational companies to considerably increase the availability of LCI data
ATHENA detector proposal - a totally hermetic electron nucleus apparatus proposed for IP6 at the Electron-Ion Collider
ATHENA has been designed as a general purpose detector capable of delivering the full scientific scope of the Electron-Ion Collider. Careful technology choices provide fine tracking and momentum resolution, high performance electromagnetic and hadronic calorimetry, hadron identification over a wide kinematic range, and near-complete hermeticity.This article describes the detector design and its expected performance in the most relevant physics channels. It includes an evaluation of detector technology choices, the technical challenges to realizing the detector and the R&D required to meet those challenges
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