5,301 research outputs found
Optical properties of pyrochlore oxide
We present optical conductivity spectra for
single crystal at different temperatures. Among reported pyrochlore ruthenates,
this compound exhibits metallic behavior in a wide temperature range and has
the least resistivity. At low frequencies, the optical spectra show typical
Drude responses, but with a knee feature around 1000 \cm. Above 20000 \cm, a
broad absorption feature is observed. Our analysis suggests that the low
frequency responses can be understood from two Drude components arising from
the partially filled Ru bands with different plasma frequencies and
scattering rates. The high frequency broad absorption may be contributed by two
interband transitions: from occupied Ru states to empty bands
and from the fully filled O 2p bands to unoccupied Ru states.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure
Petrography and Geochemistry of Metals in Almahata Sitta Ureilites
Ureilites are ultramafic achondrites, predominantly composed of olivine and pyroxenes with accessory carbon, metal and sulfide. The majority of ureilites are believed to represent the mantle of the ureilite parent body (UPB) [1]. Although ureilites have lost much of their original metal [2], the metal that remains retains a record of the formative processes. Almahata Sitta is predominantly composed of unbrecciated ureilites with a wide range of silicate compositions [3,4]. As a fall it presents a rare opportunity to examine fresh ureilite metal in-situ, and analyzing their highly siderophile element (HSE) ratios gives clues to their formation. Bulk siderophile element analyses of Almahata Sitta fall within the range observed in other ureilites [5]. We have examined the metals in seven ureilitic samples of Almahata Sitta (AS) and one associated chondrite fragment (AS#25)
Development of wirelessly-powered, extracranial brain activator (ECBA) in a large animal model for the future non-invasive human neuromodulation
As transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) is an emerging and promising technique for neuromodulation, we developed a novel device; wirelessly-powered, extracranial brain activator (ECBA), which is mounted subcutaneously, and its neuromodulation effect was investigated. The oscillatory changes in electrocorticography (EcoG) were analyzed from two types of stimulation. Two weeks prior to the recording experiment, we underwent surgery for implantation of subdural strips and ECBA module over centroparietal regions of anesthetized beagles. Low-frequency stimulation (LFS) and subsequent high-frequency stimulation (HFS) protocols (600 pulses respectively) were applied. Then, the power changes before and after each stimulation in five different bands were compared. A significantly larger voltage difference with subcutaneous than transcutaneous stimulation measured at EcoG channels indicated a substantial current attenuation between the skin and skull. Compared with the baseline, all subjects showed consistently decreased delta power and increased gamma power after HFS. LFS also induced a similar, but opposite, pattern of power change in four beagles. The results from this study indicate that LFS and HFS with our novel ECBA can consistently and effectively modulate neural activity of the cortex, inducing neural inhibition and facilitation functions, respectively. Future studies are necessary to further ensuring a consistent efficacy and long-term safety.11Ysciescopu
Traveling length and minimal traveling time for flow through percolation networks with long-range spatial correlations
We study the distributions of traveling length l and minimal traveling time t
through two-dimensional percolation porous media characterized by long-range
spatial correlations. We model the dynamics of fluid displacement by the
convective movement of tracer particles driven by a pressure difference between
two fixed sites (''wells'') separated by Euclidean distance r. For strongly
correlated pore networks at criticality, we find that the probability
distribution functions P(l) and P(t) follow the same scaling Ansatz originally
proposed for the uncorrelated case, but with quite different scaling exponents.
We relate these changes in dynamical behavior to the main morphological
difference between correlated and uncorrelated clusters, namely, the
compactness of their backbones. Our simulations reveal that the dynamical
scaling exponents for correlated geometries take values intermediate between
the uncorrelated and homogeneous limiting cases
Non-Fermi liquid behavior and scaling of low frequency suppression in optical conductivity spectra of CaRuO
Optical conductivity spectra of paramagnetic CaRuO are
investigated at various temperatures. At T=10 K, it shows a non-Fermi liquid
behavior of , similar to the case
of a ferromagnet SrRuO. As the temperature () is increased, on the other
hand, in the low frequency region is progressively
suppressed, deviating from the 1/{\omega}^{\frac 12%}-dependence.
Interestingly, the suppression of is found to scale with
at all temperatures. The origin of the scaling
behavior coupled with the non-Fermi liquid behavior is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Hole spin polarization in GaAlAs:Mn structures
A self-consistent calculation of the electronic properties of GaAlAs:Mn
magnetic semiconductor quantum well structures is performed including the
Hartree term and the sp-d exchange interaction with the Mn magnetic moments.
The spin polarization density is obtained for several structure configurations.
Available experimental results are compared with theory.Comment: 4 page
The in vitro effects of dehydroepiandrosterone on human osteoarthritic chondrocytes
AbstractObjective: To investigate the in vitro effects of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) on human osteoarthritic chondrocytes.Design: Chondrocytes isolated from human osteoarthritic knee cartilage were three-dimensionally cultured in alginate beads, except for cell proliferation experiment. Cells were treated with DHEA in the presence or absence of IL-1β. The effects on chondrocytes were analyzed using a 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2yl)-5-(3-carboxymethoxy-phenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium inner salt (MTS) assay (for chondrocyte proliferation), a dimethylmethylene blue (DMB) assay (for glycosaminoglycan (GAG) synthesis), and an indole assay (for DNA amount). Gene expressions of type I and II collagen, metalloproteinase-1 and -3 (MMP-1 and -3), and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) as well as the IL-1β-induced gene expressions of MMP-1 and -3 were analyzed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The protein synthesis of MMP-1 and -3 and TIMP-1 was determined by Western blotting.Results: The treatment of chondrocytes with DHEA did not affect chondrocyte proliferation or GAG synthesis up to 100μM of concentration. The gene expression of type II collagen increased in a dose-dependent manner, while that of type I decreased. DHEA suppressed the expression of MMP-1 significantly at concentrations exceeding 50μM. The gene expression of MMP-3 was also suppressed, but this was without statistical significance. The expression of TIMP-1 was significantly increased by DHEA at concentrations exceeding 10μM. The effects of DHEA on the gene expressions of MMP-1 and -3 were more prominent in the presence of IL-1β, in which DHEA suppressed not only MMP-1, but also MMP-3 at the lower concentrations, 10 and 50μM, respectively. Western blotting results were in agreement with RT-PCR, which indicates that DHEA acts at the gene transcription level.Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that DHEA has no toxic effect on chondrocytes up to 100μM of concentration and has an ability to modulate the imbalance between MMPs and TIMP-1 during OA at the transcription level, which suggest that it has a protective role against articular cartilage loss
Optical investigation on the electronic structures of Y_{2}Ru_{2}O_{7}, CaRuO_{3}, SrRuO_{3}, and Bi_{2}Ru_{2}O_{7}
We investigated the electronic structures of the bandwidth-controlled
ruthenates, YRuO, CaRuO, SrRuO, and BiRuO, by optical conductivity analysis in a wide energy region of 5 meV
12 eV. We could assign optical transitions from the systematic changes
of the spectra and by comparison with the O 1 x-ray absorption data. We
estimated some physical parameters, such as the on-site Coulomb repulsion
energy and the crystal-field splitting energy. These parameters show that the
4 orbitals should be more extended than 3 ones. These results are also
discussed in terms of the Mott-Hubbard model.Comment: 12 pages (1 table), 3 figure
Classical and quantum partition bound and detector inefficiency
We study randomized and quantum efficiency lower bounds in communication
complexity. These arise from the study of zero-communication protocols in which
players are allowed to abort. Our scenario is inspired by the physics setup of
Bell experiments, where two players share a predefined entangled state but are
not allowed to communicate. Each is given a measurement as input, which they
perform on their share of the system. The outcomes of the measurements should
follow a distribution predicted by quantum mechanics; however, in practice, the
detectors may fail to produce an output in some of the runs. The efficiency of
the experiment is the probability that the experiment succeeds (neither of the
detectors fails).
When the players share a quantum state, this gives rise to a new bound on
quantum communication complexity (eff*) that subsumes the factorization norm.
When players share randomness instead of a quantum state, the efficiency bound
(eff), coincides with the partition bound of Jain and Klauck. This is one of
the strongest lower bounds known for randomized communication complexity, which
subsumes all the known combinatorial and algebraic methods including the
rectangle (corruption) bound, the factorization norm, and discrepancy.
The lower bound is formulated as a convex optimization problem. In practice,
the dual form is more feasible to use, and we show that it amounts to
constructing an explicit Bell inequality (for eff) or Tsirelson inequality (for
eff*). We give an example of a quantum distribution where the violation can be
exponentially bigger than the previously studied class of normalized Bell
inequalities.
For one-way communication, we show that the quantum one-way partition bound
is tight for classical communication with shared entanglement up to arbitrarily
small error.Comment: 21 pages, extended versio
Molecular epidemiology and genetic diversity of human astrovirus in South Korea from 2002 to 2007
AbstractThe present study was conducted to survey the prevalence and genotypic distribution of human astrovirus (HAstV) circulating in South Korea. Of 160,027 patients with acute gastroenteritis, 2,057 (1.3%) were positive for HAstV antigen. We determined the genotypes of 187 HAstV strains collected from laboratories across the country. Genetic analysis revealed genotype 1 to be the most prevalent, accounting for 72.19% of the strains, followed by genotypes 8 (9.63%), 6 (6.95%), 4 (6.42%), 2 (3.21%) and 3 (1.60%). Our findings indicate that HAstV is less common but, even so, a potentially important viral agent of gastroenteritis in South Korea, with significant genetic diversity among circulating HAstV strains
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