330 research outputs found
Assessing the importance of the fishing and associated livelihoods in the coastal fishing sector in Trinidad and Tobago: early results
Evaluating the needs of the fishing and associated livelihoods in the coastal fishing sector of Trinidad and Tobago.
Acoustically driven storage of light in a quantum well
The strong piezoelectric fields accompanying a surface acoustic wave on a
semiconductor quantum well structure are employed to dissociate optically
generated excitons and efficiently trap the created electron hole pairs in the
moving lateral potential superlattice of the sound wave. The resulting spatial
separation of the photogenerated ambipolar charges leads to an increase of the
radiative lifetime by orders of magnitude as compared to the unperturbed
excitons. External and deliberate screening of the lateral piezoelectric fields
triggers radiative recombination after very long storage times at a remote
location on the sample.Comment: 4 PostScript figures included, Physical Review Letters, in pres
Enhanced sequential carrier capture into individual quantum dots and quantum posts controlled by surface acoustic waves
Individual self-assembled Quantum Dots and Quantum Posts are studied under
the influence of a surface acoustic wave. In optical experiments we observe an
acoustically induced switching of the occupancy of the nanostructures along
with an overall increase of the emission intensity. For Quantum Posts,
switching occurs continuously from predominantely charged excitons (dissimilar
number of electrons and holes) to neutral excitons (same number of electrons
and holes) and is independent on whether the surface acoustic wave amplitude is
increased or decreased. For quantum dots, switching is non-monotonic and shows
a pronounced hysteresis on the amplitude sweep direction. Moreover, emission of
positively charged and neutral excitons is observed at high surface acoustic
wave amplitudes. These findings are explained by carrier trapping and
localization in the thin and disordered two-dimensional wetting layer on top of
which Quantum Dots nucleate. This limitation can be overcome for Quantum Posts
where acoustically induced charge transport is highly efficient in a wide
lateral Matrix-Quantum Well.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
Dosimetry for Quantitative Analysis of the Effects of Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation in Radiation Therapy Patients
Stokes' Drift of linear Defects
A linear defect, viz. an elastic string, diffusing on a planar substrate
traversed by a travelling wave experiences a drag known as Stokes' drift. In
the limit of an infinitely long string, such a mechanism is shown to be
characterized by a sharp threshold that depends on the wave parameters, the
string damping constant and the substrate temperature. Moreover, the onset of
the Stokes' drift is signaled by an excess diffusion of the string center of
mass, while the dispersion of the drifting string around its center of mass may
grow anomalous.Comment: 14 pages, no figures, to be published in Phys.Rev.
Mapping Monkeypox Transmission Risk through Time and Space in the Congo Basin
Monkeypox is a major public health concern in the Congo Basin area, with changing patterns of human case occurrences reported in recent years. Whether this trend results from better surveillance and detection methods, reduced proportions of vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated human populations, or changing environmental conditions remains unclear. Our objective is to examine potential correlations between environment and transmission of monkeypox events in the Congo Basin. We created ecological niche models based on human cases reported in the Congo Basin by the World Health Organization at the end of the smallpox eradication campaign, in relation to remotely-sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index datasets from the same time period. These models predicted independent spatial subsets of monkeypox occurrences with high confidence; models were then projected onto parallel environmental datasets for the 2000s to create present-day monkeypox suitability maps. Recent trends in human monkeypox infection are associated with broad environmental changes across the Congo Basin. Our results demonstrate that ecological niche models provide useful tools for identification of areas suitable for transmission, even for poorly-known diseases like monkeypox.This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health grant 1R01TW008859-01 ("Sylvatic Reservoirs of Human Monkeypox"). Use of trade, product, or firm names does not imply endorsement by the United States Government. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Hierarchical information clustering by means of topologically embedded graphs
We introduce a graph-theoretic approach to extract clusters and hierarchies
in complex data-sets in an unsupervised and deterministic manner, without the
use of any prior information. This is achieved by building topologically
embedded networks containing the subset of most significant links and analyzing
the network structure. For a planar embedding, this method provides both the
intra-cluster hierarchy, which describes the way clusters are composed, and the
inter-cluster hierarchy which describes how clusters gather together. We
discuss performance, robustness and reliability of this method by first
investigating several artificial data-sets, finding that it can outperform
significantly other established approaches. Then we show that our method can
successfully differentiate meaningful clusters and hierarchies in a variety of
real data-sets. In particular, we find that the application to gene expression
patterns of lymphoma samples uncovers biologically significant groups of genes
which play key-roles in diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of some of the most
relevant human lymphoid malignancies.Comment: 33 Pages, 18 Figures, 5 Table
Gene regulation in parthenocarpic tomato fruit
Parthenocarpy is potentially a desirable trait for many commercially grown fruits if undesirable changes to structure, flavour, or nutrition can be avoided. Parthenocarpic transgenic tomato plants (cv MicroTom) were obtained by the regulation of genes for auxin synthesis (iaaM) or responsiveness (rolB) driven by DefH9 or the INNER NO OUTER (INO) promoter from Arabidopsis thaliana. Fruits at a breaker stage were analysed at a transcriptomic and metabolomic level using microarrays, real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and a Pegasus III TOF (time of flight) mass spectrometer. Although differences were observed in the shape of fully ripe fruits, no clear correlation could be made between the number of seeds, transgene, and fruit size. Expression of auxin synthesis or responsiveness genes by both of these promoters produced seedless parthenocarpic fruits. Eighty-three percent of the genes measured showed no significant differences in expression due to parthenocarpy. The remaining 17% with significant variation (P <0.05) (1748 genes) were studied by assigning a predicted function (when known) based on BLAST to the TAIR database. Among them several genes belong to cell wall, hormone metabolism and response (auxin in particular), and metabolism of sugars and lipids. Up-regulation of lipid transfer proteins and differential expression of several indole-3-acetic acid (IAA)- and ethylene-associated genes were observed in transgenic parthenocarpic fruits. Despite differences in several fatty acids, amino acids, and other metabolites, the fundamental metabolic profile remains unchanged. This work showed that parthenocarpy with ovule-specific alteration of auxin synthesis or response driven by the INO promoter could be effectively applied where such changes are commercially desirable
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