Detrended fluctuation analysis on the correlations of complex networks under attack and repair strategy

We analyze the correlation properties of the Erdos-Renyi random graph (RG) and the Barabasi-Albert scale-free network (SF) under the attack and repair strategy with detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). The maximum degree k_max, representing the local property of the system, shows similar scaling behaviors for random graphs and scale-free networks. The fluctuations are quite random at short time scales but display strong anticorrelation at longer time scales under the same system size N and different repair probability p_re. The average degree , revealing the statistical property of the system, exhibits completely different scaling behaviors for random graphs and scale-free networks. Random graphs display long-range power-law correlations. Scale-free networks are uncorrelated at short time scales; while anticorrelated at longer time scales and the anticorrelation becoming stronger with the increase of p_re.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Submergence of the Sidebands in the Photon-assisted Tunneling through a Quantum Dot Weakly Coupled to Luttinger Liquid Leads

We study theoretically the photon-assisted tunneling through a quantum dot weakly coupled to Luttinger liquids (LL) leads, and find that the zero bias dc conductance is strongly affected by the interactions in the LL leads. In comparison with the system with Fermi liquid (FL) leads, the sideband peaks of the dc conductance become blurring for 1/2<g<1, and finally merge into the central peak for g<1/2, (g is the interaction parameter in the LL leads). The sidebands are suppressed for LL leads with Coulomb interactions strong enough, and the conductance always appears as a single peak for any strength and frequency of the external time-dependent field. Furthermore, the quenching effect of the central peak for the FL case does not exist for g<1/2.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Retinal S-antigen Th1 cell epitope mapping in patients with Behcet's disease

Background - Retinal S-antigen (S-Ag) is a most characterized autoantigen of autoimmune uveitis. The recognized immunodominant epitope of human S-Ag in patients with uveitis has not been identified. In this study, we selected certain patients with active uveitis to map the Th1 cell epitope spectrum of human S-Ag in Behcet's disease(BD). Methods - Blood samples were taken from eight active BD patients who showed an immune response to 40 mixed overlapping peptides spanning the entire sequence of human S-Ag. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were isolated and stimulated with single S-Ag peptide at 5 mu g/ml or 20 mu g/ml. Single-cell immune responses were measured by IFN-gamma ELIspot assay. Results - BD patients heterogeneously responded to the S-Ag peptides at two concentrations. In general, the responses to 5 mu g/ml peptides were slightly stronger than those to 20 mu g/ml peptides, while the maximum SFC frequency to single peptide at the two concentrations was similar. Several peptides including P31, P35 and P40 induced a prominent response, with the frequency of S-Ag specific cells being about 0.007%. Significant reactivity pattern shift was noted in patients with different disease courses. Conclusions - Certain active BD patients have S-Ag specific Th1 cells with a low frequency. The S-Ag epitope specificity between patients is highly heterogeneous, and varies with the uveitis cours

Gene transcription analysis during interaction between potato and Ralstonia solanacearum

Bacterial wilt (BW) caused by Ralstonia solanacearum (Rs) is an important quarantine disease that spreads worldwide and infects hundreds of plant species. The BW defense response of potato is a complicated continuous process, which involves transcription of a battery of genes. The molecular mechanisms of potato-Rs interactions are poorly understood. In this study, we combined suppression subtractive hybridization and macroarray hybridization to identify genes that are differentially expressed during the incompatible interaction between Rs and potato. In total, 302 differentially expressed genes were identified and classified into 12 groups according to their putative biological functions. Of 302 genes, 81 were considered as Rs resistance-related genes based on the homology to genes of known function, and they have putative roles in pathogen recognition, signal transduction, transcription factor functioning, hypersensitive response, systemic acquired resistance, and cell rescue and protection. Additionally, 50 out of 302 genes had no match or low similarity in the NCBI databases, and they may represent novel genes. Of seven interesting genes analyzed via RNA gel blot and semi-quantitative RT-PCR, six were induced, one was suppressed, and all had different transcription patterns. The results demonstrate that the response of potato against Rs is rapid and involves the induction of numerous various genes. The genes identified in this study add to our knowledge of potato resistance to Rs

Large-eddy simulation of shock-wave/turbulent boundary-layer interactions and its control using Sparkjet

Large-eddy simulations (LES) of the oblique impinging shock-wave/flat plate boundary layer interactions at Mach=2.3 and Reδ=20000 were carried out to investigate the underlying flow physics associated with flow separation and shock unsteadiness. The digital filter method was used to generate synthetic inflow turbulence without introducing any artificial low-frequency motions. The LES results were firstly well validated by comparing with the corresponding measurement data. The low-frequency characteristic of separation shock-wave was then studied by analyzing the obtained time sequence of the wall static pressure signals to realize its amplitudes, frequencies and wave-lengths. Finally, the study was extended by integrating with a control module of an active actuator “SparkJet” concept, in order to investigate its influences on the flow separation and the low-frequency motion of shock-wave unsteadiness. The analysis of flow topology and flow structure around separation region reveals that the actuator acts as a fluidic-like vortex generator, promotes the mixing process within the boundary layer, and thus largely elevates the near-wall turbulence kinetic energy level, leading to its enhanced ability to resist the flow separation. Details of the study will be presented in the final full paper

Pure kinetic k-essence as the cosmic speed-up

In this paper, we consider three types of k-essence. These k-essence models were presented in the parametric forms. The exact analytical solutions of the corresponding equations of motion are found. It is shown that these k-essence models for the presented solutions can give rise to cosmic acceleration.Comment: 10 pages, typos corrected, main results remain the same, minor changes to match IJTP accepted versio

Charmonium states in QCD-inspired quark potential model using Gaussian expansion method

We investigate the mass spectrum and electromagnetic processes of charmonium system with the nonperturbative treatment for the spin-dependent potentials, comparing the pure scalar and scalar-vector mixing linear confining potentials. It is revealed that the scalar-vector mixing confinement would be important for reproducing the mass spectrum and decay widths, and therein the vector component is predicted to be around 22%. With the state wave functions obtained via the full-potential Hamiltonian, the long-standing discrepancy in M1 radiative transitions of $J/\psi$ and $\psi^{\prime}$ are alleviated spontaneously. This work also intends to provide an inspection and suggestion for the possible $c\bar{c}$ among the copious higher charmonium-like states. Particularly, the newly observed X(4160) and X(4350) are found in the charmonium family mass spectrum as $M(2^1D_2)= 4164.9$ MeV and $M(3^3P_2)= 4352.4$ MeV, which strongly favor the $J^{PC}=2^{-+}, 2^{++}$ assignments respectively. The corresponding radiative transitions, leptonic and two-photon decay widths have been also predicted theoretically for the further experimental search.Comment: 16 pages,3 figure

Collective edge modes in fractional quantum Hall systems

Over the past few years one of us (Murthy) in collaboration with R. Shankar has developed an extended Hamiltonian formalism capable of describing the ground state and low energy excitations in the fractional quantum Hall regime. The Hamiltonian, expressed in terms of Composite Fermion operators, incorporates all the nonperturbative features of the fractional Hall regime, so that conventional many-body approximations such as Hartree-Fock and time-dependent Hartree-Fock are applicable. We apply this formalism to develop a microscopic theory of the collective edge modes in fractional quantum Hall regime. We present the results for edge mode dispersions at principal filling factors $\nu=1/3,1/5$ and $\nu=2/5$ for systems with unreconstructed edges. The primary advantage of the method is that one works in the thermodynamic limit right from the beginning, thus avoiding the finite-size effects which ultimately limit exact diagonalization studies.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, See cond-mat/0303359 for related result

Revealing the nanoindentation response of a single cell using a 3D structural finite element model

Changes in the apparent moduli of cells have been reported to correlate with cell abnormalities and disease. Indentation is commonly used to measure these moduli; however, there is evidence to suggest that the indentation protocol employed affects the measured moduli, which can affect our understanding of how physiological conditions regulate cell mechanics. Most studies treat the cell as a homogeneous material or a simple core–shell structure consisting of cytoplasm and a nucleus: both are far from the real structure of cells. To study indentation protocol-dependent cell mechanics, a finite element model of key intracellular components (cortex layer, cytoplasm, actin stress fibres, microtubules, and nucleus) has instead been developed. Results have shown that the apparent moduli obtained with conical indenters decreased with increasing cone angle; however, this change was less significant for spherical indenters of increasing radii. Furthermore, the interplay between indenter geometry and intracellular components has also been studied, which is useful for understanding structure-mechanics-function relationships of cells

Simple Method to Extract Lake Ice Condition from Landsat Images

Ice plays key roles in regulating hydrological, ecological, biogeochemical, and socioeconomic functions of lakes. Long-term in situ lake ice phenological records indicate that lake ice is trending toward later freeze-up, earlier breakup, and a shorter ice duration. Parallel to study of lake ice using in situ records and process-based models, satellite remote sensing can expand our understanding of lake ice change over large spatial scales. However, most remote sensing studies have focused on large lakes or short periods of time, which may not robustly represent changes over multidecadal time periods or in the much more numerous small lakes. Here, we present a random forest model, Sensitive Lake Ice Detection (SLIDE), to accurately extract ice conditions from Landsat TM, ETM+, and OLI images. We trained the model using a manually labeled lake ice dataset (1089 labeled areas over 995 lakes globally). Our results show that our model achieves accurate classification between ice/snow and water (accuracy: 97.8%, kappa coefficient: 95.5%). Comparing Landsat-derived ice cover with in situ ice conditions, we show that our model produces less bias, lower RMSE, and higher kappa than does the Landsat snow/ice flag from the quality assessment band. This is especially true during the transitional period surrounding the ice on and off dates reported from in situ (mean bias -7.3% from our model, -17.3% from the Landsat quality band). Our results demonstrate the feasibility of mining the rich Landsat archive to study lake ice dynamics and of better flagging ice-affected lake observations