9,828 research outputs found
Carbon and oxygen isotope composition of carbonates from an L6 chondrite: Evidence for terrestrial weathering from the Holbrook meteorite
Terrestrial weathering in meteorites is an important process which alters pristine elemental and isotopic abundances. The Holbrook L6 chondrite fell in 1912. Material was recovered at the time of the fall, in 1931, and 1968. The weathering processes operating on the freshly fallen meteorite in a semi-arid region of northeastern Arizona have been studied after a ground residence of 19 and 56 years. It has been shown that a large portion of the carbonate material in 7 Antarctic ordinary chondrites either underwent extensive isotopic exchange with atmospheric CO2, or formed recently in the Antarctic environment. In fact it has been demonstrated that hydrated Mg-carbonates, nesquehonite and hydromagnesite, formed in less than 40 years on LEW 85320. In order to help further constrain the effects of terrestrial weathering in meteorites, the carbon and oxygen isotopes extracted from carbonates of three different samples of Holbrook L6: a fresh sample at the time of the fall in 1912, a specimen collected in 1931, and a third specimen collected at the same site in 1968
Neuroblastoma cells with overexpressed MYCN retain their capacity to undergo neuronal differentiation
Quantum Key Distribution using Multilevel Encoding: Security Analysis
We present security proofs for a protocol for Quantum Key Distribution (QKD)
based on encoding in finite high-dimensional Hilbert spaces. This protocol is
an extension of Bennett's and Brassard's basic protocol from two bases, two
state encoding to a multi bases, multi state encoding. We analyze the mutual
information between the legitimate parties and the eavesdropper, and the error
rate, as function of the dimension of the Hilbert space, while considering
optimal incoherent and coherent eavesdropping attacks. We obtain the upper
limit for the legitimate party error rate to ensure unconditional security when
the eavesdropper uses incoherent and coherent eavesdropping strategies. We have
also consider realistic noise caused by detector's noise.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, REVTe
The Distribution of Redshifts in New Samples of Quasi-stellar Objects
Two new samples of QSOs have been constructed from recent surveys to test the
hypothesis that the redshift distribution of bright QSOs is periodic in
. The first of these comprises 57 different redshifts among all
known close pairs or multiple QSOs, with image separations 10\arcsec,
and the second consists of 39 QSOs selected through their X-ray emission and
their proximity to bright comparatively nearby active galaxies. The redshift
distributions of the samples are found to exhibit distinct peaks with a
periodic separation of in identical to that claimed
in earlier samples but now extended out to higher redshift peaks and 4.47, predicted by the formula but never seen before. The periodicity
is also seen in a third sample, the 78 QSOs of the 3C and 3CR catalogues. It is
present in these three datasets at an overall significance level -
, and appears not to be explicable by spectroscopic or similar
selection effects. Possible interpretations are briefly discussed.Comment: submitted for publication in the Astronomical Journal, 15 figure
Magnitude and Origin of CO2 Evasion From High-Latitude Lakes
Lakes evade significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere; yet the magnitude and origin of the evasion are still poorly constrained. We quantified annual CO2 evasion and its origin (in-lake net ecosystem production vs. lateral inputs from terrestrial ecosystems) in 14 high-latitude lakes through high-frequency estimates of open water CO2 flux and ecosystem metabolism and inorganic carbon mass-balance before and after ice breakup. Annual CO2 evasion ranged from 1 to 25 g C m(-2) yr(-1) of which an average of 57% was evaded over a short period at ice-breakup. Annual internal CO2 production ranged from -6 to 21 g C m(-2) yr(-1), of which at least half was produced over winter. The contribution of internal versus external source contribution to annual CO2 evasion varied between lakes, ranging from fully internal to fully external with most lakes having over 75% of the evasion sustained through a single source. Overall, the study stresses the large variability in magnitude and control of CO2 evasion and suggests that environmental change impacts on CO2 evasion from high-latitude lakes are not uniform
Activation of NF- B protein prevents the transition from juvenile ovary to testis and promotes ovarian development in Zebrafish
Testis differentiation in zebrafish involves juvenile ovary to testis transformation initiated by an apoptotic wave. The molecular regulation of this transformation process is not fully understood. NF-κB is activated at an early stage of development and has been shown to interact with steroidogenic factor-1 in mammals, leading to the suppression of anti-Müllerian hormone (Amh) gene expression. Because steroidogenic factor-1 and Amh are important for proper testis development, NF-κB-mediated induction of anti-apoptotic genes could, therefore, also play a role in zebrafish gonad differentiation. The aim of this study was to examine the potential role of NF-κB in zebrafish gonad differentiation. Exposure of juvenile zebrafish to heat-killed Escherichia coli activated the NF-κB pathways and resulted in an increased ratio of females from 30 to 85%. Microarray and quantitative real-time-PCR analysis of gonads showed elevated expression of NF-κB-regulated genes. To confirm the involvement of NF-κB-induced anti-apoptotic effects, zebrafish were treated with sodium deoxycholate, a known inducer of NF-κB or NF-κB activation inhibitor (NAI). Sodium deoxycholate treatment mimicked the effect of heat-killed bacteria and resulted in an increased proportion of females from 25 to 45%, whereas the inhibition of NF-κB using NAI resulted in a decrease in females from 45 to 20%. This study provides proof for an essential role of NF-κB in gonadal differentiation of zebrafish and represents an important step toward the complete understanding of the complicated process of sex differentiation in this species and possibly other cyprinid teleosts as well
Quantum interference structures in trapped ion dynamics beyond the Lamb-Dicke and rotating wave approximations
We apply wave packet methods to study an ion-trap system in the strong
excitation regime imposing neither the rotating wave nor the Lamb-Dicke
approximations. By this approach we show the existence of states with
restricted phase space evolution, as a genuine consequence of quantum
interference between wave packet fractions. A particular instance of such a
state oscillates between maximal entanglement and pure disentanglement between
the constitute subsystems. The characteristic crossover time is very rapid
making them suitable for state preparations of EPR or Schrodinger cat states.
Over longer time periods the dynamics of these states exhibits collapse-revival
patterns with well resolved fractional revivals in autocorrelation, inversion
and entanglement.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. Replaced with revised version. Phys. Rev. A 77,
053808 (2008
Controlled Quantum Secret Sharing
We present a new protocol in which a secret multiqubit quantum state
is shared by players and controllers, where
is the encoding state of a quantum secret sharing scheme. The players may be
considered as field agents responsible for carrying out a task, using the
secret information encrypted in , while the controllers are
superiors who decide if and when the task should be carried out and who to do
it. Our protocol only requires ancillary Bell states and Bell-basis
measurements.Comment: 6 pages, 0 figure, RevTeX4; published version with minor change
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