24,307 research outputs found
The shape of the urine stream — from biophysics to diagnostics
We develop a new computational model of capillary-waves in free-jet flows, and apply this to the problem of urological diagnosis in this first ever study of the biophysics behind the characteristic shape of the urine stream as it exits the urethral meatus. The computational fluid dynamics model is used to determine the shape of a liquid jet issuing from a non-axisymmetric orifice as it deforms under the action of surface tension. The computational results are verified with experimental modelling of the urine stream. We find that the shape of the stream can be used as an indicator of both the flow rate and orifice geometry. We performed volunteer trials which showed these fundamental correlations are also observed in vivo for male healthy volunteers and patients undergoing treatment for low flow rate. For healthy volunteers, self estimation of the flow shape provided an accurate estimation of peak flow rate (+-2%). However for the patients, the relationship between shape and flow rate suggested poor meatal opening during voiding. The results show that self measurement of the shape of the urine stream can be a useful diagnostic tool for medical practitioners since it provides a non-invasive method of measuring urine flow rate and urethral dilation
Response of Fishes to Revetment Placement
Routine fish sampling with hoop nets was conducted monthly from April through December 1978 along natural and revetted riverbanks on the lower Mississippi River near Eudora, Arkansas, to monitor changes in fish populations affected by placement of new revetment for bank protection. Eighteen species of fish were collected with four species comprising over 75% of the total catch. During the months prior to revetment placement, freshwater drum, Aplodinotus grunniens, was the most abundant (32.7% of the catch) species collected. Following in abundance were the flathead catfish, Pylodictis olivaris, (9.8%), common carp, Cyprinus carpio, (7.8%), and blue catfish, Ictalurus furcatus, (3.3%). After revetment placement in August 1978, the freshwater drum was again the most abundant component, comprising 9.7% of the catch. Gizzard shad, Dorosoma cepedianum, flathead catfish, and blue catfish followed in abundance and comprised 8.9, 4.1, and 3.4% of the total catch, respectively. Catch per effort data indicated that fish were generally more abundant at natural bank stations than revetted bank stations but the difference was not significant. The study suggests that fish inhabiting natural riverbank habitat recover quite rapidly from bank perturbation caused by the placement of revetment
Anisotropy, phonon modes, and lattice anharmonicity from dielectric function tensor analysis of monoclinic cadmium tungstate
We determine the frequency dependence of four independent CdWO Cartesian
dielectric function tensor elements by generalized spectroscopic ellipsometry
within mid-infrared and far-infrared spectral regions. Single crystal surfaces
cut under different angles from a bulk crystal, (010) and (001), are
investigated. From the spectral dependencies of the dielectric function tensor
and its inverse we determine all long wavelength active transverse and
longitudinal optic phonon modes with and symmetry as well as their
eigenvectors within the monoclinic lattice. We thereby demonstrate that such
information can be obtained completely without physical model line shape
analysis in materials with monoclinic symmetry. We then augment the effect of
lattice anharmonicity onto our recently described dielectric function tensor
model approach for materials with monoclinic and triclinic crystal symmetries
[Phys. Rev. B, 125209 (2016)], and we obtain excellent match between all
measured and modeled dielectric function tensor elements. All phonon mode
frequency and broadening parameters are determined in our model approach. We
also perform density functional theory phonon mode calculations, and we compare
our results obtained from theory, from direct dielectric function tensor
analysis, and from model lineshape analysis, and we find excellent agreement
between all approaches. We also discuss and present static and above
reststrahlen spectral range dielectric constants. Our data for CdWO are in
excellent agreement with a recently proposed generalization of the
Lyddane-Sachs-Teller relation for materials with low crystal symmetry [Phys.
Rev. Lett. 117, 215502 (2016)].Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1512.0859
Anisotropy and phonon modes from analysis of the dielectric function tensor and inverse dielectric function tensor of monoclinic yttrium orthosilicate
We determine the frequency dependence of the four independent Cartesian
tensor elements of the dielectric function for monoclinic symmetry YSiO
using generalized spectroscopic ellipsometry from 40-1200 cm. Three
different crystal cuts, each perpendicular to a principle axis, are
investigated. We apply our recently described augmentation of lattice
anharmonicity onto the eigendielectric displacement vector summation approach
[A. Mock et al., Phys. Rev. B 95, 165202 (2017)], and we present and
demonstrate the application of an eigendielectric displacement loss vector
summation approach with anharmonic broadening. We obtain excellent match
between all measured and model calculated dielectric function tensor elements
and all dielectric loss function tensor elements. We obtain 23 A
and 22 B symmetry long wavelength active transverse and
longitudinal optical mode parameters including their eigenvector orientation
within the monoclinic lattice. We perform density functional theory
calculations and obtain 23 A symmetry and 22 B
transverse and longitudinal optical mode parameters and their orientation
within the monoclincic lattice. We compare our results from ellipsometry and
density functional theory and find excellent agreement. We also determine the
static and above reststrahlen spectral range dielectric tensor values and find
a recently derived generalization of the Lyddane-Sachs-Teller relation for
polar phonons in monoclinic symmetry materials satisfied [M. Schubert, Phys.
Rev. Lett. 117, 215502 (2016)]
A Study of Giant Pulses from PSR J1824-2452A
We have searched for microsecond bursts of emission from millisecond pulsars
in the globular cluster M28 using the Parkes radio telescope. We detected a
total of 27 giant pulses from the known emitter PSR J1824-2452A. At wavelengths
around 20 cm the giant pulses are scatter-broadened to widths of around 2
microseconds and follow power-law statistics. The pulses occur in two narrow
phase-windows which correlate in phase with X-ray emission and trail the peaks
of the integrated radio pulse-components. Notably, the integrated radio
emission at these phase windows has a steeper spectral index than other
emission. The giant pulses exhibit a high degree of polarization, with many
being 100% elliptically polarized. Their position angles appear random.
Although the integrated emission of PSR J1824-2452A is relatively stable for
the frequencies and bandwidths observed, the intensities of individual giant
pulses vary considerably across our bands. Two pulses were detected at both
2700 and 3500 MHz. The narrower of the two pulses is 20 ns wide at 3500 MHz. At
2700 MHz this pulse has an inferred brightness temperature at maximum of 5 x
10^37 K. Our observations suggest the giant pulses of PSR J1824-2452A are
generated in the same part of the magnetosphere as X-ray emission through a
different emission process to that of ordinary pulses.Comment: Accepted by Ap
The relative fitness of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis: a modelling study of household transmission in Peru.
The relative fitness of drug-resistant versus susceptible bacteria in an environment dictates resistance prevalence. Estimates for the relative fitness of resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) strains are highly heterogeneous and mostly derived from in vitro experiments. Measuring fitness in the field allows us to determine how the environment influences the spread of resistance. We designed a household structured, stochastic mathematical model to estimate the fitness costs associated with multidrug resistance (MDR) carriage in Mtb in Lima, Peru during 2010-2013. By fitting the model to data from a large prospective cohort study of TB disease in household contacts, we estimated the fitness, relative to susceptible strains with a fitness of 1, of MDR-Mtb to be 0.32 (95% credible interval: 0.15-0.62) or 0.38 (0.24-0.61), if only transmission or progression to disease, respectively, was affected. The relative fitness of MDR-Mtb increased to 0.56 (0.42-0.72) when the fitness cost influenced both transmission and progression to disease equally. We found the average relative fitness of MDR-Mtb circulating within households in Lima, Peru during 2010-2013 to be significantly lower than concurrent susceptible Mtb If these fitness levels do not change, then existing TB control programmes are likely to keep MDR-TB prevalence at current levels in Lima, Peru
The potential of Antheraea pernyi silk for spinal cord repair
This work was supported by the Institute of Medical Sciences of the University of Aberdeen, Scottish Rugby Union and RS McDonald Charitable Trust. We are grateful to Mr Nicholas Hawkins from Oxford University and Ms Annette Raffan from the University of Aberdeen for assistance with tensile testing. We thank Ms Michelle Gniβ for her help with the microglial response experiments. We also thank Mr Gianluca Limodio for assisting with the MATLAB script for automation of tensile testing’s data analysis.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Self-consistency of relativistic observables with general relativity in the white dwarf-neutron star binary pulsar PSR J1141-6545
Here we report timing measurements of the relativistic binary pulsar PSR
J1141-6545 that constrain the component masses and demonstrate that the orbital
period derivative \dot Pb = (-4+/-1)x10^-13 is consistent with gravitational
wave emission as described by the general theory of relativity. The mass of the
neutron star and its companion are 1.30+/-0.02 Mo and 0.986+/-0.020 Mo
respectively, suggesting a white dwarf companion, and extending the range of
systems for which general relativity provides a correct description. On
evolutionary grounds, the progenitor mass of PSR J1141-6545 should be near the
minimum for neutron star production. Its mass is two standard deviations below
the mean of the other neutron stars, suggesting a relationship between
progenitor and remnant masses.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, revised version to Ap J Letter
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