246 research outputs found
Computationally Sound Mechanized Proofs for Basic and Public-key Kerberos
We present a computationally sound mechanized analysis of Kerberos 5, both with and without its public-key extension PKINIT. We prove authentication and key secrecy properties using the prover CryptoVerif, which works directly in the computational model; these are the first mechanical proofs of a full industrial protocol at the computational level. We also generalize the notion of key usability and use CryptoVerif to prove that this definition is satisfied by keys in Kerberos
Hypocretin underlies the evolution of sleep loss in the Mexican cavefish
The duration of sleep varies dramatically between species, yet little is known about the genetic basis or evolutionary factors driving this variation in behavior. The Mexican cavefish, Astyanax mexicanus, exists as surface populations that inhabit rivers, and multiple cave populations with convergent evolution on sleep loss. The number of Hypocretin/Orexin (HCRT)-positive hypothalamic neurons is increased significantly in cavefish, and HCRT is upregulated at both the transcript and protein levels. Pharmacological or genetic inhibition of HCRT signaling increases sleep in cavefish, suggesting enhanced HCRT signaling underlies the evolution of sleep loss. Ablation of the lateral line or starvation, manipulations that selectively promote sleep in cavefish, inhibit hcrt expression in cavefish while having little effect on surface fish. These findings provide the first evidence of genetic and neuronal changes that contribute to the evolution of sleep loss, and support a conserved role for HCRT in sleep regulation
On the Conductivity of a Magnetoactive Turbulent Plasma
The problem of determining the effective conductivity tensor of a
magnetoactive turbulent plasma is considered in the approximation of isolated
particles. Additional gyrotropicterms are shown to appear in the conductivity
tensor in the presence of mean, nonzero magnetic helicity. The dispersion of
propagating electro- magnetic waves changes, additional modes and additional
rotation of the polarization plane appear, and the waves can be amplified. The
properties acquired by plasma with helicity are similar those observed in
chiral and bianisotropic electrodynamic media.Comment: 15 page
Fractal Photonic Crystal Waveguides
We propose a new class of one-dimensional (1D) photonic waveguides: the
fractal photonic crystal waveguides (FPCWs). These structures are photonic
crystal waveguides (PCWs) etched with fratal distribution of grooves such as
Cantor bars. The transmission properties of the FPCWs are investigated and
compared with those of the conventional 1D PCWs. It is shown that the FPCW
transmission spectrum has self-similarity properties associated with the
fractal distribution of grooves. Furthermore, FPCWs exhibit sharp localized
transmissions peaks that are approximately equidistant inside the photonic band
gap
Light scattering from self-affine fractal silver surfaces with nanoscale cutoff: Far-field and near-field calculations
We study the light scattered from randomly rough, one-dimensional self-affine
fractal silver surfaces with nanoscale lower cutoff, illuminated by s- or
p-polarized Gaussian beams a few microns wide. By means of rigorous numerical
calculations based on the Green theorem integral equation formulation, we
obtain both the far- and near-field scattered intensities. The influence of
diminishing the fractal lower scale cutoff (from below a hundred, down to a few
nanometers) is analyzed in the case of both single realizations and ensemble
average magnitudes. For s polarization, variations are small in the far field,
being only significant in the higher spatial frequency components of evanescent
character in the near field. In the case of p polarization, however, the
nanoscale cutoff has remarkable effects stemming from the roughness-induced
excitation of surface-plasmon polaritons. In the far field, the effect is
noticed both in the speckle pattern variation and in the decrease of the total
reflected energy upon ensemble averaging, due to increased absorption. In the
near field, more efficient excitation of localized optical modes is achieved
with smaller cutoff, which in turn leads to huge surface electric field
enhancements.Comment: REVTeX 4, 10 page
Tunnelling in quantum superlattices with variable lacunarity
Quantum fractal superlattices are microelectronic devices consisting of a
series of thin layers of two semiconductor materials deposited alternately on
each other over a substrate following the rules of construction of a fractal
set, here, a symmetrical polyadic Cantor fractal. The scattering properties of
electrons in these superlattices may be modeled by using that of quantum
particles in piecewise constant potential wells. The twist plots representing
the reflection coefficient as function of the lacunarity parameter show the
appearance of black curves with perfectly transparent tunnelling which may be
classified as vertical, arc, and striation nulls. Approximate analytical
formulae for these reflection-less curves are derived using the transfer matrix
method. Comparison with the numerical results show their good accuracy.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
Spectral and polarization effects in deterministically nonperiodic multilayers containing optically anisotropic and gyrotropic materials
Influence of material anisotropy and gyrotropy on optical properties of
fractal multilayer nanostructures is theoretically investigated. Gyrotropy is
found to uniformly rotate the output polarization for bi-isotropic multilayers
of arbitrary geometrical structure without any changes in transmission spectra.
When introduced in a polarization splitter based on a birefringent fractal
multilayer, isotropic gyrotropy is found to resonantly alter output
polarizations without shifting of transmission peak frequencies. The design of
frequency-selective absorptionless polarizers for polarization-sensitive
integrated optics is outlined
Fluorescence spectroscopy and imaging of myocardial apoptosis
Fluorometry is used to detect intrinsic flavoprotein (FP) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide NADH signals in an open-chest rabbit model of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury. Myocyte apoptosis has been shown clinically to contribute to infarct size following reperfusion of ischemic myocardium. A noninvasive means of assessing apoptosis in this setting would aid in the treatment of subsequent ventricular remodeling. We show that in vivo fluorometry can be useful in apoptosis detection in open-chest surgeries. Specific changes in myocardial redox states have been shown to indicate the presence of apoptosis. Two main mitochondrial intrinsic fluorophores, NADH and FP signals, were measured during normoxia, ischemia, and reperfusion experimental protocol. Ischemia was induced by occlusion of the largest branch of the circumflex coronary artery and fluorescence signals are collected by applying two different fluorescence techniques: in vivo fluorometry and postmortem cryoimaging. The first technique was employed to detect FP and NADH signals in vivo and the latter technique uses freeze trapping and lowtemperature fluorescence imaging. The heart is snap frozen while still in the chest cavity to make a snapshot of the metabolic state of the tissue. After freezing, the ischemic area and its surrounding border zone were excised and the sample was embedded in a frozen buffer for cryoscanning. These two data sets, in vivo fluorometry and low temperature redox scanning, show consistent extreme oxidation of the mitochondrial redox states (higher redox ratio) suggesting the initiation of apoptosis following reperfusion. This represents the first attempt to assess myocyte apoptosis in the beating heart
Theory of the propagation of coupled waves in arbitrarily-inhomogeneous stratified media
We generalize the invariant imbedding theory of the wave propagation and
derive new invariant imbedding equations for the propagation of arbitrary
number of coupled waves of any kind in arbitrarily-inhomogeneous stratified
media, where the wave equations are effectively one-dimensional. By doing this,
we transform the original boundary value problem of coupled second-order
differential equations to an initial value problem of coupled first-order
differential equations, which makes the numerical solution of the coupled wave
equations much easier. Using the invariant imbedding equations, we are able to
calculate the matrix reflection and transmission coefficients and the wave
amplitudes inside the inhomogeneous media exactly and efficiently. We establish
the validity and the usefulness of our results by applying them to the
propagation of circularly-polarized electromagnetic waves in one-dimensional
photonic crystals made of isotropic chiral media. We find that there are three
kinds of bandgaps in these structures and clarify the nature of these bandgaps
by exact calculations.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Europhys. Let
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