4,386 research outputs found
Shotgun Phage Display - Selection for Bacterial Receptins or other Exported Proteins
Shotgun phage display cloning involves construction of libraries from randomly fragmented bacterial chromosomal DNA, cloned genes, or eukaryotic cDNAs, into a phagemid vector. The library obtained consists of phages expressing polypeptides corresponding to all genes encoded by the organism, or overlapping peptides derived from the cloned gene. From such a library, polypeptides with affinity for another molecule can be isolated by affinity selection, panning. The technique can be used to identify bacterial receptins and identification of their minimal binding domain, and but also to identify epitopes recognised by antibodies. In addition, after modification of the phagemid vector, the technique has also been used to identify bacterial extracytoplasmic proteins
Design of a high power production target for the Beam Dump Facility at CERN
The Beam Dump Facility (BDF) project is a proposed general-purpose facility
at CERN, dedicated to beam dump and fixed target experiments. In its initial
phase, the facility is foreseen to be exploited by the Search for Hidden
Particles (SHiP) experiment. Physics requirements call for a pulsed 400 GeV/c
proton beam as well as the highest possible number of protons on target (POT)
each year of operation, in order to search for feebly interacting particles.
The target/dump assembly lies at the heart of the facility, with the aim of
safely absorbing the full high intensity Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) beam,
while maximizing the production of charmed and beauty mesons. High-Z materials
are required for the target/dump, in order to have the shortest possible
absorber and reduce muon background for the downstream experiment. The high
average power deposited on target (305 kW) creates a challenge for heat
removal. During the BDF facility Comprehensive Design Study (CDS), launched by
CERN in 2016, extensive studies have been carried out in order to define and
assess the target assembly design. These studies are described in the present
contribution, which details the proposed design of the BDF production target,
as well as the material selection process and the optimization of the target
configuration and beam dilution. One of the specific challenges and novelty of
this work is the need to consider new target materials, such as a molybdenum
alloy (TZM) as core absorbing material and Ta2.5W as cladding.
Thermo-structural and fluid dynamics calculations have been performed to
evaluate the reliability of the target and its cooling system under beam
operation. In the framework of the target comprehensive design, a preliminary
mechanical design of the full target assembly has also been carried out,
assessing the feasibility of the whole target system.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figure
Introduction to Nordic Mediation Research
Non peer reviewe
BDNF polymorphisms are linked to poorer working memory performance, reduced cerebellar and hippocampal volumes and differences in prefrontal cortex in a Swedish elderly population
BACKGROUND: Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) links learning, memory and cognitive decline in elderly, but evidence linking BDNF allele variation, cognition and brain structural differences is lacking. METHODS: 367 elderly Swedish men (n = 181) and women (n = 186) from Prospective Investigation of the Vasculature in Uppsala seniors (PIVUS) were genotyped and the BDNF functional rs6265 SNP was further examined in subjects who completed the Trail Making Task (TMT), verbal fluency task, and had a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) examined brain structure, cognition and links with BDNF. RESULTS: The functional BDNF SNP (rs6265,) predicted better working memory performance on the TMT with positive association of the Met rs6265, and was linked with greater cerebellar, precuneus, left superior frontal gyrus and bilateral hippocampal volume, and reduced brainstem and bilateral posterior cingulate volumes. CONCLUSIONS: The functional BDNF polymorphism influences brain volume in regions associated with memory and regulation of sensorimotor control, with the Met rs6265 allele potentially being more beneficial to these functions in the elderly
The role of matter density uncertainties in the analysis of future neutrino factory experiments
Matter density uncertainties can affect the measurements of the neutrino
oscillation parameters at future neutrino factory experiments, such as the
measurements of the mixing parameters and \deltacp. We compare
different matter density uncertainty models and discuss the possibility to
include the matter density uncertainties in a complete statistical analysis.
Furthermore, we systematically study in which measurements and where in the
parameter space matter density uncertainties are most relevant. We illustrate
this discussion with examples that show the effects as functions of different
magnitudes of the matter density uncertainties. We find that matter density
uncertainties are especially relevant for large \stheta \gtrsim 10^{-3}.
Within the KamLAND-allowed range, they are most relevant for the precision
measurements of \stheta and \deltacp, but less relevant for ``binary''
measurements, such as for the sign of \ldm, the sensitivity to \stheta, or
the sensitivity to maximal CP violation. In addition, we demonstrate that
knowing the matter density along a specific baseline better than to about 1%
precision means that all measurements will become almost independent of the
matter density uncertainties.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, LaTeX. Final version to be published in Phys.
Rev.
Khovanov-Rozansky Homology and Topological Strings
We conjecture a relation between the sl(N) knot homology, recently introduced
by Khovanov and Rozansky, and the spectrum of BPS states captured by open
topological strings. This conjecture leads to new regularities among the sl(N)
knot homology groups and suggests that they can be interpreted directly in
topological string theory. We use this approach in various examples to predict
the sl(N) knot homology groups for all values of N. We verify that our
predictions pass some non-trivial checks.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures, harvmac; minor corrections, references adde
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