Energy-Dependent Timing of Thermal Emission in Solar Flares

We report solar flare plasma to be multi-thermal in nature based on the theoretical model and study of the energy-dependent timing of thermal emission in ten M-class flares. We employ high-resolution X-ray spectra observed by the Si detector of the "Solar X-ray Spectrometer" (SOXS). The SOXS onboard the Indian GSAT-2 spacecraft was launched by the GSLV-D2 rocket on 8 May 2003. Firstly we model the spectral evolution of the X-ray line and continuum emission flux F(\epsilon) from the flare by integrating a series of isothermal plasma flux. We find that multi-temperature integrated flux F(\epsilon) is a power-law function of \epsilon with a spectral index (\gamma) \approx -4.65. Next, based on spectral-temporal evolution of the flares we find that the emission in the energy range E= 4 - 15 keV is dominated by temperatures of T= 12 - 50 MK, while the multi-thermal power-law DEM index (\gamma) varies in the range of -4.4 and -5.7. The temporal evolution of the X-ray flux F(\epsilon,t) assuming a multi-temperature plasma governed by thermal conduction cooling reveals that the temperature-dependent cooling time varies between 296 and 4640 s and the electron density (n_e) varies in the range of n_e= (1.77-29.3)*10^10 cm-3. Employing temporal evolution technique in the current study as an alternative method for separating thermal from non-thermal components in the energy spectra, we measure the break-energy point ranging between 14 and 21\pm1.0 keV.Comment: Solar Physics, in pres

Emergence of communities on a coevolutive model of wealth interchange

We present a model in which we investigate the structure and evolution of a random network that connects agents capable of exchanging wealth. Economic interactions between neighbors can occur only if the difference between their wealth is less than a threshold value that defines the width of the economic classes. If the interchange of wealth cannot be done, agents are reconnected with another randomly selected agent, allowing the network to evolve in time. On each interaction there is a probability of favoring the poorer agent, simulating the action of the government. We measure the Gini index, having real world values attached to reality. Besides the network structure showed a very close connection with the economic dynamic of the system.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure

Duality in the Quantum Hall Effect - the Role of Electron Spin

At low temperatures the phase diagram for the quantum Hall effect has a powerful symmetry arising from the Law of Corresponding States. This symmetry gives rise to an infinite order discrete group which is a generalisation of Kramers-Wannier duality for the two dimensional Ising model. The duality group, which is a subgroup of the modular group, is analysed and it is argued that there is a quantitative difference between a situation in which the spin splitting of electron energy levels is comparable to the cyclotron energy and one in which the spin splitting is much less than the cyclotron energy. In the former case the group of symmetries is larger than in the latter case. These duality symmetries are used to constrain the scaling functions of the theory and, under an assumption of complex meromorphicity, a unique functional form is obtained for the crossover of the conductivities between Hall states as a function of the external magnetic field. This analytic form is shown to give good agreement with experimental data. The analysis requires a consideration of the way in which longitudinal resistivities are extracted from the experimentally measured longitudinal resistances and a novel method is proposed for determining the correct normalisation for the former.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, typeset in LaTe

Structure-function analysis of the curli accessory protein CsgE defines surfaces essential for coordinating amyloid fiber formation

Curli amyloid fibers are produced as part of the extracellular biofilm matrix and are composed primarily of the major structural subunit CsgA. The CsgE chaperone facilitates the secretion of CsgA through CsgG by forming a cap at the base of the nonameric CsgG outer membrane pore. We elucidated a series of finely tuned nonpolar and charge-charge interactions that facilitate the oligomerization of CsgE and its ability to transport unfolded CsgA to CsgG for translocation. CsgE oligomerization in vitro is temperature dependent and is disrupted by mutations in the W48 and F79 residues. Using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), we identified two regions of CsgE involved in the CsgE-CsgA interaction: a head comprising a positively charged patch centered around R47 and a stem comprising a negatively charged patch containing E31 and E85. Negatively charged residues in the intrinsically disordered N- and C-terminal “tails” were not implicated in this interaction. Head and stem residues were mutated and interrogated using in vivo measurements of curli production and in vitro amyloid polymerization assays. The R47 head residue of CsgE is required for stabilization of CsgA- and CsgE-mediated curli fiber formation. Mutation of the E31 and E85 stem residues to positively charged side chains decreased CsgE-mediated curli fiber formation but increased CsgE-mediated stabilization of CsgA. No single-amino-acid substitutions in the head, stem, or tail regions affected the ability of CsgE to cap the CsgG pore as determined by a bile salt sensitivity assay. These mechanistic insights into the directed assembly of functional amyloids in extracellular biofilms elucidate possible targets for biofilm-associated bacterial infections.Curli represent a class of functional amyloid fibers produced by Escherichia coli and other Gram-negative bacteria that serve as protein scaffolds in the extracellular biofilm matrix. Despite the lack of sequence conservation among different amyloidogenic proteins, the structural and biophysical properties of functional amyloids such as curli closely resemble those of amyloids associated with several common neurodegenerative diseases. These parallels are underscored by the observation that certain proteins and chemicals can prevent amyloid formation by the major curli subunit CsgA and by alpha-synuclein, the amyloid-forming protein found in Lewy bodies during Parkinson’s disease. CsgA subunits are targeted to the CsgG outer membrane pore by CsgE prior to secretion and assembly into fibers. Here, we use biophysical, biochemical, and genetic approaches to elucidate a mechanistic understanding of CsgE function in curli biogenesis

Obesity does not affect early outcomes in children with newly diagnosed Crohn disease

The impact of obesity on pediatric Crohn disease (CD) remains poorly characterized. We aimed to evaluate disease-related outcomes in overweight and obese children with CD, compared to normal-weight children. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of children with newly diagnosed CD enrolled in the ImproveCareNow Network. Patients were stratified into normal weight, overweight, and obese groups using standardized weight percentiles. A total of 898 children were included, with 87 children (10%) being overweight and 43 children (5%) being obese; baseline characteristics were similar between groups. There was no significant difference in number of visits in remission during 1 year between normal weight, overweight, and obese children. At 1-year follow-up, nutritional status, growth status, or medication use also did not differ between groups. Hence, obesity does not appear to adversely affect CD outcomes in children with newly diagnosed CD in the first year after diagnosis

Exclusive Queueing Process with Discrete Time

In a recent study [C Arita, Phys. Rev. E 80, 051119 (2009)], an extension of the M/M/1 queueing process with the excluded-volume effect as in the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP) was introduced. In this paper, we consider its discrete-time version. The update scheme we take is the parallel one. A stationary-state solution is obtained in a slightly arranged matrix product form of the discrete-time open TASEP with the parallel update. We find the phase diagram for the existence of the stationary state. The critical line which separates the parameter space into the regions with and without the stationary state can be written in terms of the stationary current of the open TASEP. We calculate the average length of the system and the average number of particles

On Delays in Management Frameworks: Metrics, Models and Analysis

Management performance evaluation means assessment of scalability, complexity, accuracy, throughput, delays and resources consumptions. In this paper, we focus on the evaluation of management frameworks delays through a set of specific metrics. We investigate the statistical properties of these metrics when the number of management nodes increases. We show that management delays measured at the application level are statistically modeled by distributions with heavy tails, especially the Weibull distribution. Given that delays can substantially degrade the capacity of management algorithms to react and resolve problems it is useful to get a finer model to describe them.We suggest theWeibull distribution as a model of delays for the analysis and simulations of such algorithms

Detecting Microscopic Black Holes with Neutrino Telescopes

If spacetime has more than four dimensions, ultra-high energy cosmic rays may create microscopic black holes. Black holes created by cosmic neutrinos in the Earth will evaporate, and the resulting hadronic showers, muons, and taus may be detected in neutrino telescopes below the Earth's surface. We simulate such events in detail and consider black hole cross sections with and without an exponential suppression factor. We find observable rates in both cases: for conservative cosmogenic neutrino fluxes, several black hole events per year are observable at the IceCube detector; for fluxes at the Waxman-Bahcall bound, tens of events per year are possible. We also present zenith angle and energy distributions for all three channels. The ability of neutrino telescopes to differentiate hadrons, muons, and possibly taus, and to measure these distributions provides a unique opportunity to identify black holes, to experimentally constrain the form of black hole production cross sections, and to study Hawking evaporation.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure

The Harris-Luck criterion for random lattices

The Harris-Luck criterion judges the relevance of (potentially) spatially correlated, quenched disorder induced by, e.g., random bonds, randomly diluted sites or a quasi-periodicity of the lattice, for altering the critical behavior of a coupled matter system. We investigate the applicability of this type of criterion to the case of spin variables coupled to random lattices. Their aptitude to alter critical behavior depends on the degree of spatial correlations present, which is quantified by a wandering exponent. We consider the cases of Poissonian random graphs resulting from the Voronoi-Delaunay construction and of planar, ``fat'' $\phi^3$ Feynman diagrams and precisely determine their wandering exponents. The resulting predictions are compared to various exact and numerical results for the Potts model coupled to these quenched ensembles of random graphs.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, REVTeX 4. Version as published, one figure added for clarification, minor re-wordings and typo cleanu