39,237 research outputs found
Biased amino acid composition in warm-blooded animals
Among eubacteria and archeabacteria, amino acid composition is correlated with habitat temperatures. In particular, species living at high temperatures have proteins enriched in the amino acids E-R-K and depleted in D-N-Q-T-S-H-A. Here, we show that this bias is a proteome-wide effect in prokaryotes, and that the same trend is observed in fully sequenced mammals and chicken compared to cold-blooded vertebrates (Reptilia, Amphibia and fish). Thus, warm-blooded vertebrates likely experienced genome-wide weak positive selection on amino acid composition to increase protein thermostability
Supernova-driven outflows and chemical evolution of dwarf spheroidal galaxies
We present a general phenomenological model for the metallicity distribution
(MD) in terms of [Fe/H] for dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs). These galaxies
appear to have stopped accreting gas from the intergalactic medium and are
fossilized systems with their stars undergoing slow internal evolution. For a
wide variety of infall histories of unprocessed baryonic matter to feed star
formation, most of the observed MDs can be well described by our model. The key
requirement is that the fraction of the gas mass lost by supernova-driven
outflows is close to unity. This model also predicts a relationship between the
total stellar mass and the mean metallicity for dSphs in accord with properties
of their dark matter halos. The model further predicts as a natural consequence
that the abundance ratios [E/Fe] for elements such as O, Mg, and Si decrease
for stellar populations at the higher end of the [Fe/H] range in a dSph. We
show that for infall rates far below the net rate of gas loss to star formation
and outflows, the MD in our model is very sharply peaked at one [Fe/H] value,
similar to what is observed in most globular clusters. This suggests that
globular clusters may be end members of the same family as dSphs.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, to be published in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Science
Prediction of thickness limits of ideal polar ultrathin films
Competition between electronic and atomic reconstruction is a constantly
recurring theme in transition-metal oxides. We use density functional theory
calculations to study this competition for a model system consisting of a thin
film of the polar, infinite-layer structure ACuO2 (A=Ca, Sr, Ba) grown on a
nonpolar, perovskite SrTiO3 substrate. A transition from the bulk planar
structure to a chain-type thin film accompanied by substantial changes to the
electronic structure is predicted for a SrCuO2 film fewer than five unit cells
thick. An analytical model explains why atomic reconstruction becomes more
favorable than electronic reconstruction as the film becomes thinner, and
suggests that similar considerations should be valid for other polar films
Etching-dependent reproducible memory switching in vertical SiO2 structures
Vertical structures of SiO sandwiched between a top tungsten electrode
and conducting non-metal substrate were fabricated by dry and wet etching
methods. Both structures exhibit similar voltage-controlled memory behaviors,
in which short voltage pulses (1 s) can switch the devices between high-
and low-impedance states. Through the comparison of current-voltage
characteristics in structures made by different methods, filamentary conduction
at the etched oxide edges is most consistent with the results, providing
insights into similar behaviors in metal/SiO/metal systems. High ON/OFF ratios
of over 10 were demonstrated.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures + 2 suppl. figure
Study of interacting electrons in graphene under the renormalized-ring-diagram approximation
Using the tight-binding model with long-range Coulomb interactions between
electrons, we study some of the electronic properties of graphene. The Coulomb
interactions are treated with the renormalized-ring-diagram approximation. By
self-consistently solving the integral equations for the Green function, we
calculate the spectral density. The obtained result is in agreement with
experimental observation. In addition, we also compute the density of states,
the distribution functions, and the ground-state energy. Within the present
approximation, we find that the imaginary part of the self-energy fixed at the
Fermi momentum varies as quadratic in energy close to the chemical potential,
regardless the system is doped or not. This result appears to indicate that the
electrons in graphene always behave like a moderately correlated Fermi liquid.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figure
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