5,972 research outputs found
Analysis of WFPC-2 Core Samples for MMOD Discrimination
An examination of the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2) radiator assembly was conducted at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center during the summer of 2009. Immediately apparent was the predominance of impact features, identified as simple or complex craters, resident only in the thermal paint layer; similar features were observed during a prior survey of the WFPC-1 radiator. Larger impact features displayed spallation zones, darkened areas, and other features not observed in impacts onto bare surfaces. Craters were extracted by coring the radiator in the NASA Johnson Space Centers Space Exposed Hardware cleanroom and were subsequently examined using scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy to determine the likely origin, e.g., micrometeoritic or orbital debris, of the impacting projectile. Recently, a selection of large cores was re-examined using a new technique developed to overcome some limitations of traditional crater imaging and analysis. This technique, motivated by thin section analysis, examines a polished, lateral surface area revealed by cross-sectioning the core sample. This paper reviews the technique, the classification rubric as extended by this technique, and results to date
Rapid Evolution of BRCA1 and BRCA2 in Humans and Other Primates
The maintenance of chromosomal integrity is an essential task of every living organism and cellular repair mechanisms exist to guard against insults to DNA. Given the importance of this process, it is expected that DNA repair proteins would be evolutionarily conserved, exhibiting very minimal sequence change over time. However, BRCA1, an essential gene involved in DNA repair, has been reported to be evolving rapidly despite the fact that many protein-altering mutations within this gene convey a significantly elevated risk for breast and ovarian cancers. Results: To obtain a deeper understanding of the evolutionary trajectory of BRCA1, we analyzed complete BRCA1 gene sequences from 23 primate species. We show that specific amino acid sites have experienced repeated selection for amino acid replacement over primate evolution. This selection has been focused specifically on humans and our closest living relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus). After examining BRCA1 polymorphisms in 7 bonobo, 44 chimpanzee, and 44 rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) individuals, we find considerable variation within each of these species and evidence for recent selection in chimpanzee populations. Finally, we also sequenced and analyzed BRCA2 from 24 primate species and find that this gene has also evolved under positive selection. Conclusions: While mutations leading to truncated forms of BRCA1 are clearly linked to cancer phenotypes in humans, there is also an underlying selective pressure in favor of amino acid-altering substitutions in this gene. A hypothesis where viruses are the drivers of this natural selection is discussed.National Institutes of Health R01-GM-093086, 8U42OD011197-13National Science Foundation BCS-07115972Burroughs Wellcome FundMolecular Bioscience
Algorithms for outerplanar graph roots and graph roots of pathwidth at most 2
Deciding whether a given graph has a square root is a classical problem that
has been studied extensively both from graph theoretic and from algorithmic
perspectives. The problem is NP-complete in general, and consequently
substantial effort has been dedicated to deciding whether a given graph has a
square root that belongs to a particular graph class. There are both
polynomial-time solvable and NP-complete cases, depending on the graph class.
We contribute with new results in this direction. Given an arbitrary input
graph G, we give polynomial-time algorithms to decide whether G has an
outerplanar square root, and whether G has a square root that is of pathwidth
at most 2
A temperate former West Antarctic ice sheet suggested by an extensive zone of bed channels
Several recent studies predict that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will become increasingly unstable under warmer conditions. Insights on such change can be assisted through investigations of the subglacial landscape, which contains imprints of former ice-sheet behavior. Here, we present radio-echo sounding data and satellite imagery revealing a series of ancient large sub-parallel subglacial bed channels preserved in the region between the Möller and Foundation Ice Streams, West Antarctica. We suggest that these newly recognized channels were formed by significant meltwater routed along the icesheet bed. The volume of water required is likely substantial and can most easily be explained by water generated at the ice surface. The Greenland Ice Sheet today exemplifies how significant seasonal surface melt can be transferred to the bed via englacial routing. For West Antarctica, the Pliocene (2.6–5.3 Ma) represents the most recent sustained period when temperatures could have been high enough to generate surface melt comparable to that of present-day Greenland. We propose, therefore, that a temperate ice sheet covered this location during Pliocene warm periods
Inland extent of the Weddell Sea Rift imaged by new aerogeophysical data
Peer reviewedPostprin
From D3-Branes to Lifshitz Space-Times
We present a simple embedding of a z=2 Lifshitz space-time into type IIB
supergravity. This is obtained by considering a stack of D3-branes in type IIB
supergravity and deforming the world-volume by a plane wave. The plane wave is
sourced by the type IIB axion. The superposition of the plane wave and the
D3-branes is 1/4 BPS. The near horizon geometry of this configuration is a
5-dimensional z=0 Schroedinger space-time times a 5-sphere. This geometry is
also 1/4 BPS. Upon compactification along the direction in which the wave is
traveling the 5-dimensional z=0 Schroedinger space-time reduces to a
4-dimensional z=2 Lifshitz space-time. The compactification is such that the
circle is small for weakly coupled type IIB string theory. This reduction
breaks the supersymmetries. Further, we propose a general method to construct
analytic z=2 Lifshitz black brane solutions. The method is based on deforming
5-dimensional AdS black strings by an axion wave and reducing to 4-dimensions.
We illustrate this method with an example.Comment: version 3: version published in Classical and Quantum Gravit
Transport properties of dense fluid argon
We calculate using molecular dynamics simulations the transport properties of
realistically modeled fluid argon at pressures up to and
temperatures up to . In this context we provide a critique of some newer
theoretical predictions for the diffusion coefficients of liquids and a
discussion of the Enskog theory relevance under two different adaptations:
modified Enskog theory (MET) and effective diameter Enskog theory. We also
analyze a number of experimental data for the thermal conductivity of
monoatomic and small diatomic dense fluids.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Beyond MFV in family symmetry theories of fermion masses
Minimal Flavour Violation (MFV) postulates that the only source of flavour
changing neutral currents and CP violation, as in the Standard Model, is the
CKM matrix. However it does not address the origin of fermion masses and mixing
and models that do usually have a structure that goes well beyond the MFV
framework. In this paper we compare the MFV predictions with those obtained in
models based on spontaneously broken (horizontal) family symmetries, both
Abelian and non-Abelian. The generic suppression of flavour changing processes
in these models turns out to be weaker than in the MFV hypothesis. Despite
this, in the supersymmetric case, the suppression may still be consistent with
a solution to the hierarchy problem, with masses of superpartners below 1 TeV.
A comparison of FCNC and CP violation in processes involving a variety of
different family quantum numbers should be able to distinguish between various
family symmetry models and models satisfying the MFV hypothesis.Comment: 34 pages, no figure
Exotic particles below the TeV from low scale flavour theories
A flavour gauge theory is observable only if the symmetry is broken at
relatively low energies. The intrinsic parity-violation of the fermion
representations in a flavour theory describing quark, lepton and higgsino
masses and mixings generically requires anomaly cancellation by new fermions.
Benchmark supersymmetric flavour models are built and studied to argue that: i)
the flavour symmetry breaking should be about three orders of magnitude above
the higgsino mass, enough also to efficiently suppress FCNC and CP violations
coming from higher-dimensional operators; ii) new fermions with exotic decays
into lighter particles are typically required at scales of the order of the
higgsino mass.Comment: 19 pages, references added, one comment and one footnote added,
results unchange
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