8,389 research outputs found
Microtubule length distributions in the presence of protein-induced severing
Microtubules are highly regulated dynamic elements of the cytoskeleton of
eukaryotic cells. One of the regulation mechanisms observed in living cells is
the severing by the proteins katanin and spastin. We introduce a model for the
dynamics of microtubules in the presence of randomly occurring severing events.
Under the biologically motivated assumption that the newly created plus end
undergoes a catastrophe, we investigate the steady state length distribution.
We show that the presence of severing does not affect the number of
microtubules, regardless of the distribution of severing events. In the special
case in which the microtubules cannot recover from the depolymerizing state (no
rescue events) we derive an analytical expression for the length distribution.
In the general case we transform the problem into a single ODE that is solved
numerically.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Dynamical Friction of a Circular-Orbit Perturber in a Gaseous Medium
We investigate the gravitational wake due to, and dynamical friction on, a
perturber moving on a circular orbit in a uniform gaseous medium using a
semi-analytic method. This work is a straightforward extension of Ostriker
(1999) who studied the case of a straight-line trajectory. The circular orbit
causes the bending of the wake in the background medium along the orbit,
forming a long trailing tail. The wake distribution is thus asymmetric, giving
rise to the drag forces in both opposite (azimuthal) and lateral (radial)
directions to the motion of the perturber, although the latter does not
contribute to orbital decay much. For subsonic motion, the density wake with a
weak tail is simply a curved version of that in Ostriker and does not exhibit
the front-back symmetry. The resulting drag force in the opposite direction is
remarkably similar to the finite-time, linear-trajectory counterpart. On the
other hand, a supersonic perturber is able to overtake its own wake, possibly
multiple times, and develops a very pronounced tail. The supersonic tail
surrounds the perturber in a trailing spiral fashion, enhancing the perturbed
density at the back as well as far front of the perturber. We provide the
fitting formulae for the drag forces as functions of the Mach number, whose
azimuthal part is surprisingly in good agreement with the Ostriker's formula,
provided Vp t=2 Rp, where Vp and Rp are the velocity and orbital radius of the
perturber, respectively.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysical
Journa
Production of Milky Way structure by the Magellanic Clouds
Previous attempts at disturbing the galactic disk by the Magellanic Clouds
relied on direct tidal forcing. However, by allowing the halo to actively
respond rather than remain a rigid contributor to the rotation curve, the
Clouds may produce a wake in the halo which then distorts the disk. Recent work
reported here suggests that the Magellanic Clouds use this mechanism to produce
disk distortions sufficient to account for both the radial location, position
angle and sign of the HI warp and observed anomalies in stellar kinematics
towards the galactic anticenter and LSR motion.Comment: 8 pages, uuencoded compressed PostScript, no figures, html version
with figures and mpeg simulations available at
http://www-astro.phast.umass.edu/Preprints/martin/martin1/lmc_online.htm
A model for the orientational ordering of the plant microtubule cortical array
The plant microtubule cortical array is a striking feature of all growing
plant cells. It consists of a more or less homogeneously distributed array of
highly aligned microtubules connected to the inner side of the plasma membrane
and oriented transversely to the cell growth axis. Here we formulate a
continuum model to describe the origin of orientational order in such confined
arrays of dynamical microtubules. The model is based on recent experimental
observations that show that a growing cortical microtubule can interact through
angle dependent collisions with pre-existing microtubules that can lead either
to co-alignment of the growth, retraction through catastrophe induction or
crossing over the encountered microtubule. We identify a single control
parameter, which is fully determined by the nucleation rate and intrinsic
dynamics of individual microtubules. We solve the model analytically in the
stationary isotropic phase, discuss the limits of stability of this isotropic
phase, and explicitly solve for the ordered stationary states in a simplified
version of the model.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure
Constraining the Collisional Nature of the Dark Matter Through Observations of Gravitational Wakes
We propose to use gravitational wakes as a direct observational probe of the
collisional nature of the dark matter. We calculate analytically the structure
of a wake generated by the motion of a galaxy in the core of an X-ray cluster
for dark matter in the highly-collisional and collisionless limits. We show
that the difference between these limits can be recovered from detailed X-ray
or weak lensing observations. We also discuss the sizes of sub-halos in these
limits. Preliminary X-ray data on the motion of NGC 1404 through the Fornax
group disfavors fluid-like dark matter but does not exclude scenarios in which
the dark matter is weakly collisional.Comment: 29 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Ap
Monitoring ethnic minorities in the Netherlands
Item does not contain fulltextThe article first summarises the history of ethnic minority policy in the Netherlands and the development of the âethnic minorityâ and âallochthonousâ categories, which are peculiar in comparative perspective in emphasising socio-economic disadvantage as a constitutive dimension of minority status and in setting the minority question within the broader Dutch political principle of âpillarisationâ. The article then examines the use of statistics in public policy, in a context where the national census has been discontinued since 1971, focusing more specifically on the case of education, where major statistical efforts have been devoted to identifying patterns of disadvantage and integration. Finally, the article briefly examines current debates on the situation of ethnic minorities in the Netherlands in the context of growing questioning of established Dutch models of minority policy.13 p
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Re-examining the U.K.'s greatest tornado outbreak: forecasting the limited extent of tornadoes along a cold front
On 23 November 1981, a strong cold front swept across the U.K., producing tornadoes from the west to the east coasts. An extensive campaign to collect tornado reports by the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (TORRO) resulted in 104 reports, the largest U.K. outbreak. The front was simulated with a convection-permitting numerical model down to 200-m horizontal grid spacing to better understand its evolution and meteorological environment. The event was typical of tornadoes in the U.K., with convective available potential energy (CAPE) less than 150 J kg-1, 0-1-km wind shear of 10-20 m s-1, and a narrow cold-frontal rainband forming precipitation cores and gaps. A line of cyclonic absolute vorticity existed along the front, with maxima as large as 0.04 s-1. Some hook-shaped misovortices bore kinematic similarity to supercells. The narrow swath along which the line was tornadic was bounded on the equatorward side by weak vorticity along the line and on the poleward side by zero CAPE, enclosing a region where the environment was otherwise favorable for tornadogenesis. To determine if the 104 tornado reports were plausible, first possible duplicate reports were eliminated, resulting in as few as 58 tornadoes to as many as 90. Second, the number of possible parent misovortices that may have spawned tornadoes is estimated from model output. The number of plausible tornado reports in the 200-m grid-spacing domain was 22 and as many as 44, whereas the model simulation was used to estimate 30 possible parent misovortices within this domain. These results suggest that 90 reports was plausible
Oral medicine case book 76: Methotrexate induced mucosal erosions and ulcerations
A 71-year-old male was referred from his general
practitioner to the Oral Medicine Clinic at the University
of the Western Cape, Oral Health Centre, Tygerberg
campus, on account of a six-week history of recurrent
oral ulceration
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