3,173 research outputs found
Activation of posterior pair-rule stripe expression in response to maternal caudal and zygotic knirps activities.
Topological Defects in the Abrikosov Lattice of Vortices in Type-II Superconductors
The free energy costs for various defects within an Abrikosov lattice of
vortices are calculated using the lowest Landau level approximation (LLL).
Defect solutions with boundary conditions for lines to meet at a point
(crossing defect) and for lines to twist around each other (braid defect) are
sought for 2, 3, 6, and 12 lines. Many results have been unexpected, including
the nonexistence of a stable two- or three-line braid. This, and the high
energy cost found for a six-line braid lead us to propose that the equilibrium
vortex state is not entangled below the irreversibility line of the high-
superconductors or in a large part of the vortex-liquid phase above this line.
Also, the solution for an infinite straight screw dislocation is found, and
used to give a limiting form for the free energy cost of very large braids.
This depends on the area enclosed by the braid as well as its perimeter length.Comment: 30 pages, 17 Encapsulated PostScript figures, uses Revtex (with epsf
Nonlinear atom optics and bright gap soliton generation in finite optical lattices
We theoretically investigate the transmission dynamics of coherent matter
wave pulses across finite optical lattices in both the linear and the nonlinear
regimes. The shape and the intensity of the transmitted pulse are found to
strongly depend on the parameters of the incident pulse, in particular its
velocity and density: a clear physical picture for the main features observed
in the numerical simulations is given in terms of the atomic band dispersion in
the periodic potential of the optical lattice. Signatures of nonlinear effects
due the atom-atom interaction are discussed in detail, such as atom optical
limiting and atom optical bistability. For positive scattering lengths, matter
waves propagating close to the top of the valence band are shown to be subject
to modulational instability. A new scheme for the experimental generation of
narrow bright gap solitons from a wide Bose-Einstein condensate is proposed:
the modulational instability is seeded in a controlled way starting from the
strongly modulated density profile of a standing matter wave and the solitonic
nature of the generated pulses is checked from their shape and their
collisional properties
TRAF6 Phosphorylation Prevents Its Autophagic Degradation and Re-Shapes LPS-Triggered Signaling Networks
The ubiquitin E3 ligase TNF Receptor Associated Factor 6 (TRAF6) participates in a large number of different biological processes including innate immunity, differentiation and cell survival, raising the need to specify and shape the signaling output. Here, we identify a lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-dependent increase in TRAF6 association with the kinase IKKε (inhibitor of NF-κB kinase subunit ε) and IKKε-mediated TRAF6 phosphorylation at five residues. The reconstitution of TRAF6-deficient cells, with TRAF6 mutants representing phosphorylation-defective or phospho-mimetic TRAF6 variants, showed that the phospho-mimetic TRAF6 variant was largely protected from basal ubiquitin/proteasome-mediated degradation, and also from autophagy-mediated decay in autolysosomes induced by metabolic perturbation. In addition, phosphorylation of TRAF6 and its E3 ligase function differentially shape basal and LPS-triggered signaling networks, as revealed by phosphoproteome analysis. Changes in LPS-triggered phosphorylation networks of cells that had experienced autophagy are partially dependent on TRAF6 and its phosphorylation status, suggesting an involvement of this E3 ligase in the interplay between metabolic and inflammatory circuits
Gender plays no role in student ability to perform on computer-based examinations
BACKGROUND: To see if there is a difference in performance when students switch from traditional paper-and-pencil examinations to computer-based examinations, and to determine whether there are gender differences in student performance in these two examination formats. METHODS: This study involved first year medical students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign over three Academic Years 2002–03/2003–04 and 2003–05. Comparisons of student performance by overall class and gender were made. Specific comparisons within courses that utilized both the paper-and-pencil and computer formats were analyzed. RESULTS: Overall performance scores for students among the various Academic Years revealed no differences between exams given in the traditional pen-and-paper and computer formats. Further, when we looked specifically for gender differences in performance between these two testing formats, we found none. CONCLUSION: The format for examinations in the courses analyzed does not affect student performance. We find no evidence for gender differences in performance on exams on pen-and-paper or computer-based exams
Longitudinal and transverse dissipation in a simple model for the vortex lattice with screening
Transport properties of the vortex lattice in high temperature
superconductors are studied using numerical simulations in the case in which
the non-local interactions between vortex lines are dismissed. The results
obtained for the longitudinal and transverse resistivities in the presence of
quenched disorder are compared with the results of experimental measurements
and other numerical simulations where the full interaction is considered. This
work shows that the dependence on temperature of the resistivities is well
described by the model without interactions, thus indicating that many of the
transport characteristics of the vortex structure in real materials are mainly
a consequence of the topological configuration of the vortex structure only. In
addition, for highly anisotropic samples, a regime is obtained where
longitudinal coherence is lost at temperatures where transverse coherence is
still finite. I discuss the possibility of observing this regime in real
samples.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures included using epsf.st
Radar Observations and the Shape of Near-Earth Asteroid 2008 EV5
We observed the near-Earth asteroid 2008 EV5 with the Arecibo and Goldstone
planetary radars and the Very Long Baseline Array during December 2008. EV5
rotates retrograde and its overall shape is a 400 /pm 50 m oblate spheroid. The
most prominent surface feature is a ridge parallel to the asteroid's equator
that is broken by a concavity 150 m in diameter. Otherwise the asteroid's
surface is notably smooth on decameter scales. EV5's radar and optical albedos
are consistent with either rocky or stony-iron composition. The equatorial
ridge is similar to structure seen on the rubble-pile near-Earth asteroid
(66391) 1999 KW4 and is consistent with YORP spin-up reconfiguring the asteroid
in the past. We interpret the concavity as an impact crater. Shaking during the
impact and later regolith redistribution may have erased smaller features,
explaining the general lack of decameter-scale surface structure.Comment: This paper has been accepted for publication in Icarus:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WGF-5207B2F-4/2/d87cd2ae4da00c2b277e2dc79a532c4
Assessment of hydropyrolysis as a method for the quantification of black carbon using standard reference materials
A wide selection of thermal, chemical and optical methods have been proposed for the quantification of black carbon (BC) in environmental matrices, and the results to date differ markedly depending upon the method used. A new approach is hydropyrolysis (hypy), where pyrolysis assisted by high hydrogen pressures (150 bar) facilitates the complete reductive removal of labile organic matter, so isolating a highly stable portion of the BC continuum (defined as BChypy). Here, the potential of hypy for the isolation and quantification of BC is evaluated using the 12 reference materials from the International BC Ring Trial, comprising BC-rich samples, BC-containing environmental matrices and BC-free potentially interfering materials. By varying the hypy operating conditions, it is demonstrated that lignocellulosic, humic and other labile organic carbon material (defined as non-BChypy) is fully removed by 550 °C, with hydrogasification of the remaining BChypy not commencing until over 575 °C. The resulting plateau in sample mass and carbon loss is apparent in all of the environmental samples, facilitating BC quantification in a wide range of materials. The BChypy contents for all 12 ring trial samples fall within the range reported in the BC inter-comparison study, and systematic differences with other methods are rationalised.
All methods for BC isolation, including hypy are limited by the fact that BC cannot be distinguished from extremely thermally mature organic matter; for example in high rank coals. However, the data reported here indicates that BChypy has an atomic H/C ratio of less than 0.5 and therefore comprises a chemically well-defined polyaromatic structure in terms of the average size of peri-condensed aromatic clusters of >7 rings (24 carbon atoms), that is consistent across different sample matrices. This, together with the sound underlying rationale for the reductive removal of labile organic matter, makes hypy an ideal approach for matrix independent BC quantification. The hypy results are extremely reproducible, with BChypy determinations from triplicate analyses typically within ±2% across all samples, limited mainly by the precision of the elemental analyser
Glass transition with decreasing correlation length during cooling of Fe50Co50 superlattice and strong liquids
The glass transition GT is usually thought of as a structural arrest that
occurs during the cooling of a liquid, or sometimes a plastic crystal, trapping
a metastable state of the system before it can recrystallize to stabler forms1.
This phenomenon occurs in liquids of all classes, most recently in bulk
metallic glassformers2. Much theoretical interest has been generated by the
dynamical heterogeneity observed in cooling of fragile liquids3, 4, and many
have suggested that the slow-down is caused by a related increasing correlation
length 5-9. Here we report both kinetics and thermodynamics of arrest in a
system that disorders while in its ground state, exhibits a large !Cp on arrest
(!Cp = Cp,mobile - Cp,arrested), yet clearly is characterized by a correlation
length that is decreasing as GT is approached from above. We show that GT
kinetics in our system, the disordering superlattice Fe50Co50, satisfy the
kinetic criterion for ideally 'strong' glassformers10, and since !Cp behavior
through Tg also correlates10, we propose that very strong liquidsand very
fragile liquids exist on opposite flanks of an order-disorder transition - one
that is already known for model systems
Transition Decomposition of Quantum Mechanical Evolution
We show that the existence of the family of self-adjoint Lyapunov operators
introduced in [J. Math. Phys. 51, 022104 (2010)] allows for the decomposition
of the state of a quantum mechanical system into two parts: A past time
asymptote, which is asymptotic to the state of the system at t goes to minus
infinity and vanishes at t goes to plus infinity, and a future time asymptote,
which is asymptotic to the state of the system at t goes to plus infinity and
vanishes at t goes to minus infinity. We demonstrate the usefulness of this
decomposition for the description of resonance phenomena by considering the
resonance scattering of a particle off a square barrier potential. We show that
the past time asymptote captures the behavior of the resonance. In particular,
it exhibits the expected exponential decay law and spatial probability
distribution.Comment: Accepted for publication in Int. J. Theor. Phy
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