11,408 research outputs found
The development of a solar powered residential heating and cooling system
A solar energy collector design is disclosed that would be efficient for both energy transfer and fluid flow, based upon extensive parametric analyses. Thermal design requirements are generated for the energy storage systems which utilizes sensible heat storage in water. Properly size system components (including the collector and storage) and a practical, efficient total system configuration are determined by means of computer simulation of system performance
Combining cellular and gene therapy approaches for treatment of intracranial tumors.
New treatments are needed for brain metastasis, which is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Two novel cellular and gene therapy modalities were evaluated in xenograft models for human breast cancer. The individual and especially the combined treatments with alloreactive cytotoxic T lymphocytes and replicating retroviral vectors coding for prodrug activating enzymes followed later with nontoxic prodrug demonstrated efficacy without off-target effects
Self-sustained spatiotemporal oscillations induced by membrane-bulk coupling
We propose a novel mechanism leading to spatiotemporal oscillations in
extended systems that does not rely on local bulk instabilities. Instead,
oscillations arise from the interaction of two subsystems of different spatial
dimensionality. Specifically, we show that coupling a passive diffusive bulk of
dimension d with an excitable membrane of dimension d-1 produces a
self-sustained oscillatory behavior. An analytical explanation of the
phenomenon is provided for d=1. Moreover, in-phase and anti-phase
synchronization of oscillations are found numerically in one and two
dimensions. This novel dynamic instability could be used by biological systems
such as cells, where the dynamics on the cellular membrane is necessarily
different from that of the cytoplasmic bulk.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter
Universality in escape from a modulated potential well
We show that the rate of activated escape from a periodically modulated
potential displays scaling behavior versus modulation amplitude . For
adiabatic modulation of an optically trapped Brownian particle, measurements
yield with . The theory gives
in the adiabatic limit and predicts a crossover to scaling as
approaches the bifurcation point where the metastable state disappears.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Broad host range species in specialised pathogen groups should be treated with suspicion – a case study on Entyloma infecting Ranunculus
Plant pathogenic smut fungi in the broader sense can be divided into the Ustilaginomycetes, which cause classical smut symptoms with masses of blackish spores being produced in a variety of angiosperms, and the Exobasidiomycetes, which are often less conspicuous, as many do not shed large amounts of blackish spores. The leaf-spot causing members of the genus Entyloma (Entylomatales, Exobasidiomycetes) belong to the latter group. Currently, 172 species that all infect eudicots are included in the genus. Vánky (2012) recognised five Entyloma species on species of Ranunculus s.lat. Two have been reported only from Ficaria verna s.lat., while three, E. microsporum, E. ranunculi-repentis, E. verruculosum, have been reported to have a broad host range, encompassing 30, 26, and 5 species of Ranunculus, respectively. This broad host range is in contrast to the generally high host specificity assumed for species of Entyloma, indicating that they may represent complexes of specialised species. The aim of this study was to investigate Entyloma on Ranunculus s.lat. using multigene phylogenies and morphological comparisons. Phylogenetic analyses on the basis of up to four loci (ITS, atp2, ssc1, and map) showed a clustering of Entyloma specimens according to host species. For some of these Entyloma lineages, names not currently in use were available and reinstated. In addition, Entyloma microsporum s.str. is neotypified. Six novel species are described in this study, namely, Entyloma jolantae on Ranunculus oreophilus, E. klenkei on R. marginatus, E. kochmanii on R. lanuginosus, E. piepenbringiae on R. polyanthemos subsp. nemorosus (type host) and R. repens, E. savchenkoi on R. paludosus, and E. thielii on R. montanus. For all species diagnostic bases and morphological characteristics are provided. The results in this study once more highlight the importance of detailed re-investigation of broad host-range pathogens of otherwise specialised plant pathogen groups
On the particle paths and the stagnation points in small-amplitude deep-water waves
In order to obtain quite precise information about the shape of the particle
paths below small-amplitude gravity waves travelling on irrotational deep
water, analytic solutions of the nonlinear differential equation system
describing the particle motion are provided. All these solutions are not closed
curves. Some particle trajectories are peakon-like, others can be expressed
with the aid of the Jacobi elliptic functions or with the aid of the
hyperelliptic functions. Remarks on the stagnation points of the
small-amplitude irrotational deep-water waves are also made.Comment: to appear in J. Math. Fluid Mech. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:1106.382
A stochastic model of Min oscillations in Escherichia coli and Min protein segregation during cell division
The Min system in Escherichia coli directs division to the centre of the cell
through pole-to-pole oscillations of the MinCDE proteins. We present a one
dimensional stochastic model of these oscillations which incorporates membrane
polymerisation of MinD into linear chains. This model reproduces much of the
observed phenomenology of the Min system, including pole-to-pole oscillations
of the Min proteins. We then apply this model to investigate the Min system
during cell division. Oscillations continue initially unaffected by the closing
septum, before cutting off rapidly. The fractions of Min proteins in the
daughter cells vary widely, from 50%-50% up to 85%-15% of the total from the
parent cell, suggesting that there may be another mechanism for regulating
these levels in vivo.Comment: 19 pages, 12 figures (25 figure files); published at
http://www.iop.org/EJ/journal/physbi
The non-Gaussian tail of cosmic-shear statistics
Due to gravitational instability, an initially Gaussian density field
develops non-Gaussian features as the Universe evolves. The most prominent
non-Gaussian features are massive haloes, visible as clusters of galaxies. The
distortion of high-redshift galaxy images due to the tidal gravitational field
of the large-scale matter distribution, called cosmic shear, can be used to
investigate the statistical properties of the LSS. In particular, non-Gaussian
properties of the LSS will lead to a non-Gaussian distribution of cosmic-shear
statistics. The aperture mass () statistics, recently introduced as
a measure for cosmic shear, is particularly well suited for measuring these
non-Gaussian properties. In this paper we calculate the highly non-Gaussian
tail of the aperture mass probability distribution, assuming Press-Schechter
theory for the halo abundance and the `universal' density profile of haloes as
obtained from numerical simulations. We find that for values of
much larger than its dispersion, this probability distribution is closely
approximated by an exponential, rather than a Gaussian. We determine the
amplitude and shape of this exponential for various cosmological models and
aperture sizes, and show that wide-field imaging surveys can be used to
distinguish between some of the currently most popular cosmogonies. Our study
here is complementary to earlier cosmic-shear investigations which focussed
more on two-point statistical properties.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, submitted to MNRA
Effective operators from exact many-body renormalization
We construct effective two-body Hamiltonians and E2 operators for the p-shell
by performing ab initio no-core shell model (NCSM) calculations
for A=5 and A=6 nuclei and explicitly projecting the many-body Hamiltonians and
E2 operator onto the space. We then separate the effective E2
operator into one-body and two-body contributions employing the two-body
valence cluster approximation. We analyze the convergence of proton and neutron
valence one-body contributions with increasing model space size and explore the
role of valence two-body contributions. We show that the constructed effective
E2 operator can be parametrized in terms of one-body effective charges giving a
good estimate of the NCSM result for heavier p-shell nuclei.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure
Organizing information on the next generation web - Design and implementation of a new bookmark structure
The next-generation Web will increase the need for a highly organized and ever evolving method to store references to Web objects. These requirements could be realized by the development of a new bookmark structure. This paper endeavors to identify the key requirements of such a bookmark, specifically in relation to Web documents, and sets out a suggested design through which these needs may be accomplished. A prototype developed offers such features as the sharing of bookmarks between users and groups of users. Bookmarks for Web documents in this prototype allow more specific information to be stored such as: URL, the document type, the document title, keywords, a summary, user annotations, date added, date last visited and date last modified. Individuals may access the service from anywhere on the Internet, as long as they have a Java-enabled Web browser
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