Stimulation of Phospholipase A2 by Toxic Main Group Heavy Metals: Partly Dependent on G-proteins?

Organometals induce platelet aggregation and inorganic metal ions such as Cd2+ or Pb2+ sensitise human blood platelets to aggregating agents and this action is associated with the liberation of arachidonic acid and eicosanoid formation. The same mechanism is observed using human leukaemia cells (HL-60) when treated with MeHgCl or Et3PbCl. The fatty acid liberation within human platelets and HL-60 cells could only be inhibited with phospholipase A2 inhibitors of different specificity

Magnetic coupling in highly-ordered NiO/Fe3O4(110): Ultrasharp magnetic interfaces vs. long-range magnetoelastic interactions

We present a laterally resolved X-ray magnetic dichroism study of the magnetic proximity effect in a highly ordered oxide system, i.e. NiO films on Fe3O4(110). We found that the magnetic interface shows an ultrasharp electronic, magnetic and structural transition from the ferrimagnet to the antiferromagnet. The monolayer which forms the interface reconstructs to NiFe2O4 and exhibits an enhanced Fe and Ni orbital moment, possibly caused by bonding anisotropy or electronic interaction between Fe and Ni cations. The absence of spin-flop coupling for this crystallographic orientation can be explained by a structurally uncompensated interface and additional magnetoelastic effects

Mean field approaches to the totally asymmetric exclusion process with quenched disorder and large particles

The process of protein synthesis in biological systems resembles a one dimensional driven lattice gas in which the particles (ribosomes) have spatial extent, covering more than one lattice site. Realistic, nonuniform gene sequences lead to quenched disorder in the particle hopping rates. We study the totally asymmetric exclusion process with large particles and quenched disorder via several mean field approaches and compare the mean field results with Monte Carlo simulations. Mean field equations obtained from the literature are found to be reasonably effective in describing this system. A numerical technique is developed for computing the particle current rapidly. The mean field approach is extended to include two-point correlations between adjacent sites. The two-point results are found to match Monte Carlo simulations more closely

Coarsening of Sand Ripples in Mass Transfer Models with Extinction

Coarsening of sand ripples is studied in a one-dimensional stochastic model, where neighboring ripples exchange mass with algebraic rates, $\Gamma(m) \sim m^\gamma$, and ripples of zero mass are removed from the system. For $\gamma < 0$ ripples vanish through rare fluctuations and the average ripples mass grows as \avem(t) \sim -\gamma^{-1} \ln (t). Temporal correlations decay as $t^{-1/2}$ or $t^{-2/3}$ depending on the symmetry of the mass transfer, and asymptotically the system is characterized by a product measure. The stationary ripple mass distribution is obtained exactly. For $\gamma > 0$ ripple evolution is linearly unstable, and the noise in the dynamics is irrelevant. For $\gamma = 1$ the problem is solved on the mean field level, but the mean-field theory does not adequately describe the full behavior of the coarsening. In particular, it fails to account for the numerically observed universality with respect to the initial ripple size distribution. The results are not restricted to sand ripple evolution since the model can be mapped to zero range processes, urn models, exclusion processes, and cluster-cluster aggregation.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, RevTeX4, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Interfaces with a single growth inhomogeneity and anchored boundaries

The dynamics of a one dimensional growth model involving attachment and detachment of particles is studied in the presence of a localized growth inhomogeneity along with anchored boundary conditions. At large times, the latter enforce an equilibrium stationary regime which allows for an exact calculation of roughening exponents. The stochastic evolution is related to a spin Hamiltonian whose spectrum gap embodies the dynamic scaling exponent of late stages. For vanishing gaps the interface can exhibit a slow morphological transition followed by a change of scaling regimes which are studied numerically. Instead, a faceting dynamics arises for gapful situations.Comment: REVTeX, 11 pages, 9 Postscript figure

Linear theory of unstable growth on rough surfaces

Unstable homoepitaxy on rough substrates is treated within a linear continuum theory. The time dependence of the surface width $W(t)$ is governed by three length scales: The characteristic scale $l_0$ of the substrate roughness, the terrace size $l_D$ and the Ehrlich-Schwoebel length $l_{ES}$. If $l_{ES} \ll l_D$ (weak step edge barriers) and $l_0 \ll l_m \sim l_D \sqrt{l_D/l_{ES}}$, then $W(t)$ displays a minimum at a coverage $\theta_{\rm min} \sim (l_D/l_{ES})^2$, where the initial surface width is reduced by a factor $l_0/l_m$. The r\^{o}le of deposition and diffusion noise is analyzed. The results are applied to recent experiments on the growth of InAs buffer layers [M.F. Gyure {\em et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 81}, 4931 (1998)]. The overall features of the observed roughness evolution are captured by the linear theory, but the detailed time dependence shows distinct deviations which suggest a significant influence of nonlinearities

Logarithmic roughening in a growth process with edge evaporation

Roughening transitions are often characterized by unusual scaling properties. As an example we investigate the roughening transition in a solid-on-solid growth process with edge evaporation [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 2746 (1996)], where the interface is known to roughen logarithmically with time. Performing high-precision simulations we find appropriate scaling forms for various quantities. Moreover we present a simple approximation explaining why the interface roughens logarithmically.Comment: revtex, 6 pages, 7 eps figure

Nonmonotonic roughness evolution in unstable growth

The roughness of vapor-deposited thin films can display a nonmonotonic dependence on film thickness, if the smoothening of the small-scale features of the substrate dominates over growth-induced roughening in the early stage of evolution. We present a detailed analysis of this phenomenon in the framework of the continuum theory of unstable homoepitaxy. Using the spherical approximation of phase ordering kinetics, the effect of nonlinearities and noise can be treated explicitly. The substrate roughness is characterized by the dimensionless parameter $Q = W_0/(k_0 a^2)$, where $W_0$ denotes the roughness amplitude, $k_0$ is the small scale cutoff wavenumber of the roughness spectrum, and $a$ is the lattice constant. Depending on $Q$, the diffusion length $l_D$ and the Ehrlich-Schwoebel length $l_{ES}$, five regimes are identified in which the position of the roughness minimum is determined by different physical mechanisms. The analytic estimates are compared by numerical simulations of the full nonlinear evolution equation.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, to appear on Phys. Rev.