4,039 research outputs found
Some Classes of third and Fourth-order iterative methods for solving nonlinear equations
The object of the present work is to present the new classes of third-order
and fourth-order iterative methods for solving nonlinear equations. Our
third-order method includes methods of Weerakoon \cite{Weerakoon}, Homeier
\cite{Homeier2}, Chun \cite{Chun} e.t.c. as particular cases. After that we
make this third-order method to fourth-order (optimal) by using a single weight
function rather than using two different weight functions in \cite{Soleymani}.
Finally some examples are given to illustrate the performance of the our method
by comparing with new existing third and fourth-order methods.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1307.733
SUSY QCD Corrections to Higgs-b Production : Is the \Delta_b Approximation Accurate?
The associated production of a Higgs boson with a b quark is a discovery
channel for the lightest MSSM neutral Higgs boson. We consider the SUSY QCD
contributions from squarks and gluinos and discuss the decoupling properties of
these effects. A detailed comparison of our exact order(alpha_s) results with
those of a widely used effective Lagrangian approach, the \Delta_b
approximation, is presented. The \Delta_b approximation is shown to accurately
reproduce the exact one-loop SQCD result to within a few percent over a wide
range of parameter space.Comment: figures added, version to be published in Phys Rev
Optical transitions and nature of Stokes shift in spherical CdS quantum dots
We study the structure of the energy spectra along with the character of the
states participating in optical transitions in colloidal CdS quantum dots (QDs)
using the {\sl ab initio} accuracy charge patching method combined with the
%pseudopotential based folded spectrum calculations of electronic structure of
thousand-atom nanostructures. In particular, attention is paid to the nature of
the large resonant Stokes shift observed in CdS quantum dots. We find that the
top of the valence band state is bright, in contrast with the results of
numerous {\bf kp} calculations, and determine the limits of
applicability of the {\bf kp} approach. The calculated electron-hole
exchange splitting suggests the spin-forbidden valence state may explain the
nature of the ``dark exciton'' in CdS quantum dots.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Microparticles mediate the intercellular regulation of microRNA-503 and proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2 to alter the migration and invasion capacity of breast cancer cells
The successful treatment of cancer is hampered by drug resistance and metastasis. While these two obstacles were once considered separately, recent evidence associates resistance with an enhanced metastatic capacity. However, the underlying mechanisms remain undefined. We previously described the intercellular transfer of drug resistance via submicron vesicles called microparticles (MPs). We now propose that MPs derived from drug-resistant cells are also involved in the intercellular transfer of components to enhance the migration and invasion capacity of cells. Thus, MPs may be a conduit between resistance and metastasis. We used microarray analysis to identify regulatory microRNAs (miRNAs), which contribute to the dissemination of metastatic traits. miR-503 was downregulated in recipient cells following co-culture with MPs isolated from drug-resistant cells. miR-503 was inversely associated with metastasis, as demonstrated using wound healing/scratch migration assays and Matrigel®-coated transwell invasion assays. Proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2 (PYK2) was upregulated in recipient cells and associated with increased migration and invasion, with these phenotypes being reversed using a pharmacological inhibitor of PYK2 phosphorylation, tyrphostin A9. However, the MP-mediated promotion of metastatic traits was not due to the presence of these effectors in the MP cargo but rather due to down stream effector molecules in these pathways. This is the first demonstration that the role of MPs in trait acquisition extends beyond the direct transfer of vesicle components and also includes transfer of intermediary regulators that induce down stream mediators following transfer to recipient cells. This implicates an expanding role of MPs in cancer pathogenesis. © 2014 Gong, Luk, Jaiswal and Bebawy
Multi-source and ontology-based retrieval engine for maize mutant phenotypes
Model Organism Databases, including the various plant genome databases, collect and enable access to massive amounts of heterogeneous information, including sequence data, gene product information, images of mutant phenotypes, etc, as well as textual descriptions of many of these entities. While a variety of basic browsing and search capabilities are available to allow researchers to query and peruse the names and attributes of phenotypic data, next-generation search mechanisms that allow querying and ranking of text descriptions are much less common. In addition, the plant community needs an innovative way to leverage the existing links in these databases to search groups of text descriptions simultaneously. Furthermore, though much time and effort have been afforded to the development of plant-related ontologies, the knowledge embedded in these ontologies remains largely unused in available plant search mechanisms. Addressing these issues, we have developed a unique search engine for mutant phenotypes from MaizeGDB. This advanced search mechanism integrates various text description sources in MaizeGDB to aid a user in retrieving desired mutant phenotype information. Currently, descriptions of mutant phenotypes, loci and gene products are utilized collectively for each search, though expansion of the search mechanism to include other sources is straightforward. The retrieval engine, to our knowledge, is the first engine to exploit the content and structure of available domain ontologies, currently the Plant and Gene Ontologies, to expand and enrich retrieval results in major plant genomic databases
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