571 research outputs found
Simple mechanism for a positive exchange bias
We argue that the interface coupling, responsible for the positive exchange
bias (HE) observed in ferromagnetic/compensated antiferromagnetic (FM/AF)
bilayers, favors an antiferromagnetic alignment. At low cooling field this
coupling polarizes the AF spins close to the interface, which spin
configuration persists after the sample is cooled below the Neel temperature.
This pins the FM spins as in Bean's model and gives rise to a negative HE. When
the cooling field increases, it eventually dominates and polarizes the AF spins
in an opposite direction to the low field one. This results in a positive HE.
The size of HE and the crossover cooling field are estimated. We explain why HE
is mostly positive for an AF single crystal, and discuss the role of interface
roughness on the magnitude of HE, and the quantum aspect of the interface
coupling.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, to be published on May 1 issue of PR
Computational Method for Phase Space Transport with Applications to Lobe Dynamics and Rate of Escape
Lobe dynamics and escape from a potential well are general frameworks
introduced to study phase space transport in chaotic dynamical systems. While
the former approach studies how regions of phase space are transported by
reducing the flow to a two-dimensional map, the latter approach studies the
phase space structures that lead to critical events by crossing periodic orbit
around saddles. Both of these frameworks require computation with curves
represented by millions of points-computing intersection points between these
curves and area bounded by the segments of these curves-for quantifying the
transport and escape rate. We present a theory for computing these intersection
points and the area bounded between the segments of these curves based on a
classification of the intersection points using equivalence class. We also
present an alternate theory for curves with nontransverse intersections and a
method to increase the density of points on the curves for locating the
intersection points accurately.The numerical implementation of the theory
presented herein is available as an open source software called Lober. We used
this package to demonstrate the application of the theory to lobe dynamics that
arises in fluid mechanics, and rate of escape from a potential well that arises
in ship dynamics.Comment: 33 pages, 17 figure
Effect of inadequate lap splice length on the seismic fragility of ground soft-story reinforced concrete frames
In this study, numerical analysis was used to derive seismic fragility curves for 3-, 6- and 9-story reinforced concrete (RC) frame with inadequate lap splice length and ground soft-story condition. The structural models were subjected to 15 far-field natural earthquake records. The peak ground acceleration (PGA) of the selected records was scaled in the range of 0.05g to 0.50g with an increment of 0.05g. Incremental dynamic analysis was employed to determine their inter-story drift demand and capacities. The obtained results indicated that the probability of severe damage to the RC frames increased as the number of stories decreased. It was also observed that the RC frames with inadequate lap splice length exhibited significantly higher probability of collapse when compared with RC frames with adequate lap splice length
Cathelicidin suppresses lipid accumulation and hepatic steatosis by inhibition of the CD36 receptor.
Background and objectivesObesity is a global epidemic which increases the risk of the metabolic syndrome. Cathelicidin (LL-37 and mCRAMP) is an antimicrobial peptide with an unknown role in obesity. We hypothesize that cathelicidin expression correlates with obesity and modulates fat mass and hepatic steatosis.Materials and methodsMale C57BL/6 J mice were fed a high-fat diet. Streptozotocin was injected into mice to induce diabetes. Experimental groups were injected with cathelicidin and CD36 overexpressing lentiviruses. Human mesenteric fat adipocytes, mouse 3T3-L1 differentiated adipocytes and human HepG2 hepatocytes were used in the in vitro experiments. Cathelicidin levels in non-diabetic, prediabetic and type II diabetic patients were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.ResultsLentiviral cathelicidin overexpression reduced hepatic steatosis and decreased the fat mass of high-fat diet-treated diabetic mice. Cathelicidin overexpression reduced mesenteric fat and hepatic fatty acid translocase (CD36) expression that was reversed by lentiviral CD36 overexpression. Exposure of adipocytes and hepatocytes to cathelicidin significantly inhibited CD36 expression and reduced lipid accumulation. Serum cathelicidin protein levels were significantly increased in non-diabetic and prediabetic patients with obesity, compared with non-diabetic patients with normal body mass index (BMI) values. Prediabetic patients had lower serum cathelicidin protein levels than non-diabetic subjects.ConclusionsCathelicidin inhibits the CD36 fat receptor and lipid accumulation in adipocytes and hepatocytes, leading to a reduction of fat mass and hepatic steatosis in vivo. Circulating cathelicidin levels are associated with increased BMI. Our results demonstrate that cathelicidin modulates the development of obesity
Easily retrievable objects among the NEO population
Asteroids and comets are of strategic importance for science in an effort to understand the formation, evolution and composition of the Solar System. Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are of particular interest because of their accessibility from Earth, but also because of their speculated wealth of material resources. The exploitation of these resources has long been discussed as a means to lower the cost of future space endeavours. In this paper, we consider the currently known NEO population and define a family of so-called Easily Retrievable Objects (EROs), objects that can be transported from accessible heliocentric orbits into the Earth’s neighbourhood at affordable costs. The asteroid retrieval transfers are sought from the continuum of low energy transfers enabled by the dynamics of invariant manifolds; specifically, the retrieval transfers target planar, vertical Lyapunov and halo orbit families associated with the collinear equilibrium points of the Sun-Earth Circular Restricted Three Body problem. The judicious use of these dynamical features provides the best opportunity to find extremely low energy Earth transfers for asteroid material. A catalogue of asteroid retrieval candidates is then presented. Despite the highly incomplete census of very small asteroids, the ERO catalogue can already be populated with 12 different objects retrievable with less than 500 m/s of Δv. Moreover, the approach proposed represents a robust search and ranking methodology for future retrieval candidates that can be automatically applied to the growing survey of NEOs
Transmission dynamics of the etiological agent of SARS in Hong Kong: impact of public health interventions.
We present an analysis of the first 10 weeks of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in Hong Kong. The epidemic to date has been characterized by two large clusters-initiated by two separate "super-spread" events (SSEs)-and by ongoing community transmission. By fitting a stochastic model to data on 1512 cases, including these clusters, we show that the etiological agent of SARS is moderately transmissible. Excluding SSEs, we estimate that 2.7 secondary infections were generated per case on average at the start of the epidemic, with a substantial contribution from hospital transmission. Transmission rates fell during the epidemic, primarily as a result of reductions in population contact rates and improved hospital infection control, but also because of more rapid hospital attendance by symptomatic individuals. As a result, the epidemic is now in decline, although continued vigilance is necessary for this to be maintained. Restrictions on longer range population movement are shown to be a potentially useful additional control measure in some contexts. We estimate that most currently infected persons are now hospitalized, which highlights the importance of control of nosocomial transmission
A study of low-energy transfer orbits to the Moon: towards an operational optimization technique
In the Earth-Moon system, low-energy orbits are transfer trajectories from
the earth to a circumlunar orbit that require less propellant consumption when
compared to the traditional methods. In this work we use a Monte Carlo approach
to study a great number of such transfer orbits over a wide range of initial
conditions. We make statistical and operational considerations on the resulting
data, leading to the description of a reliable way of finding "optimal" mission
orbits with the tools of multi-objective optimization
Spin Reorientations Induced by Morphology Changes in Fe/Ag(001)
By means of magneto-optical Kerr effect we observe spin reorientations from
in-plane to out-of-plane and vice versa upon annealing thin Fe films on Ag(001)
at increasing temperatures. Scanning tunneling microscopy images of the
different Fe films are used to quantify the surface roughness. The observed
spin reorientations can be explained with the experimentally acquired roughness
parameters by taking into account the effect of roughness on both the magnetic
dipolar and the magnetocrystalline anisotropy.Comment: 4 pages with 3 EPS figure
Natural and sail-displaced doubly-symmetric Lagrange point orbits for polar coverage
This paper proposes the use of doubly-symmetric, eight-shaped orbits in the circular restricted three-body problem for continuous coverage of the high-latitude regions of the Earth. These orbits, for a range of amplitudes, spend a large fraction of their period above either pole of the Earth. It is shown that they complement Sun-synchronous polar and highly eccentric Molniya orbits, and present a possible alternative to low thrust pole-sitter orbits. Both natural and solar-sail displaced orbits are considered. Continuation methods are described and used to generate families of these orbits. Starting from ballistic orbits, other families are created either by increasing the sail lightness number, varying the period or changing the sail attitude. Some representative orbits are then chosen to demonstrate the visibility of high-latitude regions throughout the year. A stability analysis is also performed, revealing that the orbits are unstable: it is found that for particular orbits, a solar sail can reduce their instability. A preliminary design of a linear quadratic regulator is presented as a solution to stabilize the system by using the solar sail only. Finally, invariant manifolds are exploited to identify orbits that present the opportunity of a ballistic transfer directly from low Earth orbit
The Effects of the pep Nuclear Reaction and Other Improvements in the Nuclear Reaction Rate Library on Simulations of the Classical Nova Outburst
We have continued our studies of the Classical Nova outburst by evolving TNRs
on 1.25Msun and 1.35Msun WDs (ONeMg composition) under conditions which produce
mass ejection and a rapid increase in the emitted light, by examining the
effects of changes in the nuclear reaction rates on both the observable
features and the nucleosynthesis during the outburst. In order to improve our
calculations over previous work, we have incorporated a modern nuclear reaction
network into our hydrodynamic computer code. We find that the updates in the
nuclear reaction rate libraries change the amount of ejected mass, peak
luminosity, and the resulting nucleosynthesis. In addition, as a result of our
improvements, we discovered that the pep reaction was not included in our
previous studies of CN explosions. Although the energy production from this
reaction is not important in the Sun, the densities in WD envelopes can exceed
gm cm and the presence of this reaction increases the energy
generation during the time that the p-p chain is operating. The effect of the
increased energy generation is to reduce the evolution time to the peak of the
TNR and, thereby, the accreted mass as compared to the evolutionary sequences
done without this reaction included. As expected from our previous work, the
reduction in accreted mass has important consequences on the characteristics of
the resulting TNR and is discussed in this paper.Comment: Accepted to the Astrophysical Journa
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