The validity of the semiclassical method for the coupled channel atomic scattering problem

Stationary phase approximation for two-channel atomic scattering system amplitud

Feasibility study of the ultraviolet spectral analysis of the lunar surface

Ultraviolet spectral analysis of granite, gabbro, and serpentinite samples to determine feasibility of mapping surface composition of moo

Spectral statistics for quantized skew translations on the torus

We study the spectral statistics for quantized skew translations on the torus, which are ergodic but not mixing for irrational parameters. It is shown explicitly that in this case the level--spacing distribution and other common spectral statistics, like the number variance, do not exist in the semiclassical limit.Comment: 7 pages. One figure, include

Vascular endothelial growth factor in premenopausal women--indicator of the best time for breast cancer surgery?

Timing of surgery in premenopausal patients with breast cancer remains controversial. Angiogenesis is essential for tumour growth and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is one of the most potent angiogenic cytokines. We aimed to determine whether the study of VEGF in relation to the menstrual cycle could help further the understanding of this issue of surgical intervention. Fourteen premenopausal women were recruited, along with three post-menopausal women, a woman on an oral contraceptive pill and a single male subject. Between eight and 11 samples were taken per person, over one menstrual cycle (over 1 month in the five controls) and analysed for sex hormones and VEGF165. Serum VEGF was significantly lower in the luteal phase and showed a significant negative correlation with progesterone in all 14 premenopausal women. No inter-sample variations of VEGF were noted in the controls. Serum from both phases of the cycle from one subject was added to MCF-7 breast cancer cells; VEGF expression in the supernatant was lower in the cells to which the luteal phase serum was added. The lowering of a potent angiogenic cytokine in the luteal phase suggests a possible decreased potential for micrometastasis establishment in that phase. This fall in VEGF may be an effect of progesterone and should be the focus of future studies

Study of the effects of ionic liquid-modified cathodes and ceramic separators on MFC performance

© 2016 Elsevier B.V. Ceramic-based MFC designs have proven to be a low cost alternative for power production and wastewater treatment. The use of ionic liquids in ceramic MFCs is explored for the first time in the present work in order to improve power output. The ionic liquid (IL) 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, [EMIM][Tf2N], has been selected for this purpose due to its advantageous properties. The performance of activated carbon cathodes using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) binder and different carbon diffusion layers (DL) (controls) is compared with two types of ionic liquid-modified cathodes (test). This work continues to study the performance of terracotta separators modified with the same ionic liquid, neat and also mixed with PTFE. Whilst the results show operational limitations when the IL is integrated in the ceramic separator, there is a significant enhancement of the MFC performance when added as part of the activated layer mixture of the cathode, achieving up to 86.5% more power output in comparison with IL-free MFCs (from 229.78 μW to 428.65 μW). The addition of a layer of PTFE-mixed ionic liquid spread on the activated layer of the cathode also leads to an increase in power of approximately 37%

A patient tumour-on-a-chip system for personalised investigation of radiotherapy based treatment regimens

Development of personalised cancer models to predict response to radiation would benefit patient care; particularly in malignancies where treatment resistance is prevalent. Herein, a robust, easy to use, tumour-on-a-chip platform which maintains precision cut head and neck cancer for the purpose of ex vivo irradiation is described. The device utilises sintered discs to separate the biopsy and medium, mimicking in vivo microvascular flow and diffusion, maintaining tissue viability for 68 h. Integrity of tissues is demonstrated by the low levels of lactate dehydrogenase release and retained histology, accompanied by assessment of cell viability by trypan blue exclusion and flow cytometry; fluid dynamic modelling validates culture conditions. An irradiation jig is described for reproducible delivery of clinically-relevant doses (5 × 2 Gy) to newly-presenting primary tumours (n = 12); the addition of concurrent cisplatin is also investigated (n = 8) with response analysed by immunohistochemistry. Fractionated irradiation reduced proliferation (BrdU, p = 0.0064), increased DNA damage (ƴH2AX, p = 0.0043) and caspase-dependent apoptosis (caspase-cleaved cytokeratin-18) compared to control; caspase-dependent apoptosis was further increased by concurrent cisplatin compared to control (p = 0.0063). This is a proof of principle study showing the response of cancer tissue to irradiation ex vivo in a bespoke system. The novel platform described has the potential to personalise treatment for patients in a cost-effective manner with applicability to any solid tumour

Quantization of multidimensional cat maps

In this work we study cat maps with many degrees of freedom. Classical cat maps are classified using the Cayley parametrization of symplectic matrices and the closely associated center and chord generating functions. Particular attention is dedicated to loxodromic behavior, which is a new feature of two-dimensional maps. The maps are then quantized using a recently developed Weyl representation on the torus and the general condition on the Floquet angles is derived for a particular map to be quantizable. The semiclassical approximation is exact, regardless of the dimensionality or of the nature of the fixed points.Comment: 33 pages, latex, 6 figures, Submitted to Nonlinearit

Entanglement Measures for Single- and Multi-Reference Correlation Effects

Electron correlation effects are essential for an accurate ab initio description of molecules. A quantitative a priori knowledge of the single- or multi-reference nature of electronic structures as well as of the dominant contributions to the correlation energy can facilitate the decision regarding the optimum quantum chemical method of choice. We propose concepts from quantum information theory as orbital entanglement measures that allow us to evaluate the single- and multi-reference character of any molecular structure in a given orbital basis set. By studying these measures we can detect possible artifacts of small active spaces.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure