Novel Lifshitz point for chiral transition in the magnetic field

Based on the generalized Ginzburg-Landau theory, chiral phase transition is discussed in the presence of magnetic field. Considering the chiral density wave we show chiral anomaly gives rise to an inhomogeneous chiral phase for nonzero quark-number chemical potential. Novel Lifshitz point appears on the vanishing chemical potential line, which may be directly explored by the lattice QCD simulation.Comment: 4pages,2figure

A new method of evaluating the side wall interference effect on airfoil angle of attack by suction from the side walls

A quantitative evaluation method of the suction effect from a suction plate on side walls is explained. It is found from wind tunnel tests that the wall interference is basically described by the summation form of wall interferences in the case of two dimensional flow and the interference of side walls

Regeneração de Passiflora suberosa em suspensão celular.

O gênero Passiflora é o maior e o mais importante da família Passifloraceae por abrigar as principais espécies exploradas comercialmente no mundo. Muitas espécies são cultivadas para a produção de sucos, consumo in natura, extração de substâncias de interesse farmacológico e fins ornamentais, mas a presença de patógenos de solo que vêm dizimando os cultivos. Uma alternativa é a hibridação interespecífica, ou seja, cruzamentos convencionais, de seleção ou cultivares comerciais, com as espécies silvestres na produção de porta-enxertos resistentes, porém esses híbridos sexuais quando obtidos têm apresentado baixa fertilidade. Desta forma, uma alternativa viável é a produção de porta-enxertos tetraplóides com genes de resistência aos patógenos pela técnica da hibridação somática. Contudo, para isto são necessários protocolos eficientes de regeneração das espécies parentais diplóides a patir de células individuais. Assim, o objetivo desse trabalho foi estabelecer um protocolo de regeneração de plantas a partir de células em suspensão da espécie de P. suberosa. Para tanto, calos MR13 BIO oriundos da Embrapa de Mandioca e Fruticultura Tropical de Cruz das Almas/BA foram submetidos ao meio de cultura MS (Murashige e Skoog) suplementado com os reguladores de crescimento BAP 1,0 mg/L ou 2,0 mg/L; KIN 1,0 mg/L ou 2,0 mg/L para a obtenção de calos friáveis no Laboratório de Cultura de Tecidos Vegetais da unidade experimental Horto Florestal da Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana/BA. O melhor resultado, BAP 2,0 mg/L, foi submetido aos testes contendo balanço de fitorreguladores: MS + BAP 2,0 mg/L + ANA 0,5 mg/L + Kin 1,0 mg/L ou MS + AIA 2,5 mg/L + ANA 0,5 mg/L +Kin 1,0 mg/L, suplementado com agar 6% e, ao teste de culturas de células em suspensão, na ausência de luz, em meio MS na metade da concentração dos sais, suplementados pelos compostos orgânicos (extrato de malte ou extrato de levedura) e mantidos sob 140 rpm de agitação contínua num volume final de 100 mL em frascos erlenmeyers de 250 mL de capacidade. As células colocadas em suspensão no meio líquido suplementado com extrato de malte foram capazes de regenerar de plantas inteiras de P. suberosa, a partir de células diplóides, num prazo de 60 dias na ausência de luz.Disponível em: Acesso em: 02 mar. 201

3D FCN Feature Driven Regression Forest-Based Pancreas Localization and Segmentation

This paper presents a fully automated atlas-based pancreas segmentation method from CT volumes utilizing 3D fully convolutional network (FCN) feature-based pancreas localization. Segmentation of the pancreas is difficult because it has larger inter-patient spatial variations than other organs. Previous pancreas segmentation methods failed to deal with such variations. We propose a fully automated pancreas segmentation method that contains novel localization and segmentation. Since the pancreas neighbors many other organs, its position and size are strongly related to the positions of the surrounding organs. We estimate the position and the size of the pancreas (localized) from global features by regression forests. As global features, we use intensity differences and 3D FCN deep learned features, which include automatically extracted essential features for segmentation. We chose 3D FCN features from a trained 3D U-Net, which is trained to perform multi-organ segmentation. The global features include both the pancreas and surrounding organ information. After localization, a patient-specific probabilistic atlas-based pancreas segmentation is performed. In evaluation results with 146 CT volumes, we achieved 60.6% of the Jaccard index and 73.9% of the Dice overlap.Comment: Presented in MICCAI 2017 workshop, DLMIA 2017 (Deep Learning in Medical Image Analysis and Multimodal Learning for Clinical Decision Support

Satellite DNA in Paphiopedilum subgenus Parvisepalum as revealed by high-throughput sequencing and fluorescent in situ hybridization

Background: Satellite DNA is a rapidly diverging, largely repetitive DNA component of many eukaryotic genomes. Here we analyse the evolutionary dynamics of a satellite DNA repeat in the genomes of a group of Asian subtropical lady slipper orchids (Paphiopedilum subgenus Parvisepalum and representative species in the other subgenera/sections across the genus). A new satellite repeat in Paphiopedilum subgenus Parvisepalum, SatA, was identified and characterized using the RepeatExplorer pipeline in HiSeq Illumina reads from P. armeniacum (2n = 26). Reconstructed monomers were used to design a satellite-specific fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) probe. The data were also analysed within a phylogenetic framework built using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences of 45S nuclear ribosomal DNA. Results: SatA comprises c. 14.5% of the P. armeniacum genome and is specific to subgenus Parvisepalum. It is composed of four primary monomers that range from 230 to 359 bp and contains multiple inverted repeat regions with hairpin loop motifs. A new karyotype of P. vietnamense (2n = 28) is presented and shows that the chromosome number in subgenus Parvisepalum is not conserved at 2n = 26, as previously reported. The physical locations of SatA sequences were visualised on the chromosomes of all seven Paphiopedilum species of subgenus Parvisepalum (2n = 26–28), together with the 5S and 45S rDNA loci using FISH. The SatA repeats were predominantly localisedin the centromeric, peri-centromeric and sub-telocentric chromosome regions, but the exact distribution pattern was species-specific. Conclusions: We conclude that the newly discovered, highly abundant and rapidly evolving satellite sequence SatA is specific to Paphiopedilum subgenus Parvisepalum. SatA and rDNA chromosomal distributions are characteristic of species, and comparisons between species reveal that the distribution patterns generate a strong phylogenetic signal. We also conclude that the ancestral chromosome number of subgenus Parvisepalum and indeed of all Paphiopedilum could be either 2n = 26 or 28, if P. vietnamense is sister to all species in the subgenus as suggested by the ITS data

Orthorhombic Phase of Crystalline Polyethylene: A Constant Pressure Path Integral Monte Carlo Study

In this paper we present a Path Integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) simulation of the orthorhombic phase of crystalline polyethylene, using an explicit atom force field with unconstrained bond lengths and angles. This work represents a quantum extension of our recent classical simulation (J. Chem. Phys. 106, 8918 (1997)). It is aimed both at exploring the applicability of the PIMC method on such polymer crystal systems, as well as on a detailed assessment of the importance of quantum effects on different quantities. We used the $NpT$ ensemble and simulated the system at zero pressure in the temperature range 25 - 300 K, using Trotter numbers between 12 and 144. In order to investigate finite-size effects, we used chains of two different lengths, C_12 and C_24, corresponding to the total number of atoms in the super-cell being 432 and 864, respectively. We show here the results for structural parameters, like the orthorhombic lattice constants a,b,c, and also fluctuations of internal parameters of the chains, such as bond lengths and bond and torsional angles. We have also determined the internal energy and diagonal elastic constants c_11, c_22 and c_33. We discuss the temperature dependence of the measured quantities and compare to that obtained from the classical simulation. For some quantities, we discuss the way they are related to the torsional angle fluctuation. In case of the lattice parameters we compare our results to those obtained from other theoretical approaches as well as to some available experimental data. In order to study isotope effects, we simulated also a deuterated polyethylene crystal at a low temperature. We also suggest possible ways of extending this study and present some general considerations concerning modeling of polymer crystals.Comment: 18 pages, RevTex, 18 figures, 3 tables, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Influence of a knot on the strength of a polymer strand

Many experiments have been done to determine the relative strength of different knots, and these show that the break in a knotted rope almost invariably occurs at a point just outside the `entrance' to the knot. The influence of knots on the properties of polymers has become of great interest, in part because of their effect on mechanical properties. Knot theory applied to the topology of macromolecules indicates that the simple trefoil or `overhand' knot is likely to be present with high probability in any long polymer strand. Fragments of DNA have been observed to contain such knots in experiments and computer simulations. Here we use {\it ab initio} computational methods to investigate the effect of a trefoil knot on the breaking strength of a polymer strand. We find that the knot weakens the strand significantly, and that, like a knotted rope, it breaks under tension at the entrance to the knot.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure