1,191 research outputs found
Superhumps in Cataclysmic Binaries. XXIII. V442 Ophiuchi and RX J1643.7+3402
We report the results of long observing campaigns on two novalike variables:
V442 Ophiuchi and RX J1643.7+3402. These stars have high-excitation spectra,
complex line profiles signifying mass loss at particular orbital phases, and
similar orbital periods (respectively 0.12433 and 0.12056 d). They are
well-credentialed members of the SW Sex class of cataclysmic variables. Their
light curves are also quite complex. V442 Oph shows periodic signals with
periods of 0.12090(8) and 4.37(15) days, and RX J1643.7+3402 shows similar
signals at 0.11696(8) d and 4.05(12) d. We interpret these short and long
periods respectively as a "negative superhump" and the wobble period of the
accretion disk. The superhump could then possibly arise from the heating of the
secondary (and structures fixed in the orbital frame) by inner-disk radiation,
which reaches the secondary relatively unimpeded since the disk is not
coplanar.
At higher frequencies, both stars show another type of variability:
quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) with a period near 1000 seconds. Underlying
these strong signals of low stability may be weak signals of higher stability.
Similar QPOs, and negative superhumps, are quite common features in SW Sex
stars. Both can in principle be explained by ascribing strong magnetism to the
white dwarf member of the binary; and we suggest that SW Sex stars are
borderline AM Herculis binaries, usually drowned by a high accretion rate. This
would provide an ancestor channel for AM Hers, whose origin is still
mysterious.Comment: PDF, 41 pages, 4 tables, 16 figures; accepted, in press, to appear
December 2002, PASP; more info at http://cba.phys.columbia.edu
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High-radiation-zone design of the FMIT high-energy beam transport
The Fusion Materials Irradiation Test (FMIT) deuteron linac, operating at 35 MeV and 100 mA continuous duty, is expected to spill 3 ..mu..A/m and to lose 10 ..mu..A at specific bending-magnet positions. The major impact of this spill will be felt in the High-Energy Beam Transport (HEBT), where many beam-line components must be maintained. A modular design concept, that uses segmented termination panels remotely located from the modules, is being employed. Radiation-hardened quadrupoles can be opened, clamshell fashion, to release the water-cooled beam tube replacement if there is beam damage or lithium contamination from the target. Termination panels contain electrical, water, and instrumentation fittings to service the module, and are positioned to allow room for neutron-absorbing shielding between the beamline and the panel. The modular construction allows laboratory prealignment and check-out of all components on a structural carriage and is adaptable to supporting gamma shields
Regret: A Theoretical and Conceptual Analysis
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73569/1/j.1468-5914.1987.tb00092.x.pd
Inscribing a discipline: tensions in the field of bioinformatics
Bioinformatics, the application of computer science to biological problems, is a central feature of post-genomic science which grew rapidly during the 1990s and 2000s. Post-genomic science is often high-throughput, involving the mass production of inscriptions [Latour and Woolgar (1986), Laboratory Life: the Construction of Scientific Facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press]. In order to render these mass inscriptions comprehensible, bioinformatic techniques are employed, with bioinformaticians producing what we call secondary inscriptions. However, despite bioinformaticians being highly skilled and credentialed scientists, the field struggles to develop disciplinary coherence. This paper describes two tensions militating against disciplinary coherence. The first arises from the fact that bioinformaticians as producers of secondary inscriptions are often institutionally dependent, subordinate even, to biologists. With bioinformatics positioned as service, it cannot determine its own boundaries but has them imposed from the outside. The second tension is a result of the interdisciplinary origin of bioinformatics â computer science and biology are disciplines with very different cultures, values and products. The paper uses interview data from two different UK projects to describe and examine these tensions by commenting on Calvert's [(2010) âSystems Biology, Interdisciplinarity and Disciplinary Identity.â In Collaboration in the New Life Sciences, edited by J. N. Parker, N. Vermeulen and B. Penders, 201â219. Farnham: Ashgate] notion of individual and collaborative interdisciplinarity and McNally's [(2008) âSociomics: CESAGen Multidisciplinary Workshop on the Transformation of Knowledge Production in the Biosciences, and its Consequences.â Proteomics 8: 222â224] distinction between âblack box optimistsâ and âblack box pessimists.
Brain size and brain/intracranial volume ratio in major mental illness
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This paper summarizes the findings of a long term study addressing the question of how several brain volume measure are related to three major mental illnesses in a Colorado subject group. It reports results obtained from a large N, collected and analyzed by the same laboratory over a multiyear period, with visually guided MRI segmentation being the primary initial analytic tool.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Intracerebral volume (ICV), total brain volume (TBV), ventricular volume (VV), ventricular/brain ratio (VBR), and TBV/ICV ratios were calculated from a total of 224 subject MRIs collected over a period of 13 years. Subject groups included controls (C, N = 89), and patients with schizophrenia (SZ, N = 58), bipolar disorder (BD, N = 51), and schizoaffective disorder (SAD, N = 26).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>ICV, TBV, and VV measures compared favorably with values obtained by other research groups, but in this study did not differ significantly between groups. TBV/ICV ratios were significantly decreased, and VBR increased, in the SZ and BD groups compared to the C group. The SAD group did not differ from C on any measure.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In this study TBV/ICV and VBR ratios separated SZ and BD patients from controls. Of interest however, SAD patients did not differ from controls on these measures. The findings suggest that the gross measure of TBV may not reliably differ in the major mental illnesses to a degree useful in diagnosis, likely due to the intrinsic variability of the measures in question; the differences in VBR appear more robust across studies. Differences in some of these findings compared to earlier reports from several laboratories finding significant differences between groups in VV and TBV may relate to phenomenological drift, differences in analytic techniques, and possibly the "file drawer problem".</p
ÎČ Subunit M2âM3 Loop Conformational Changes Are Uncoupled from α1 ÎČ Glycine Receptor Channel Gating: Implications for Human Hereditary Hyperekplexia
Hereditary hyperekplexia, or startle disease, is a neuromotor disorder caused mainly by mutations that either prevent the surface expression of, or modify the function of, the human heteromeric α1 ÎČ glycine receptor (GlyR) chloride channel. There is as yet no explanation as to why hyperekplexia mutations that modify channel function are almost exclusively located in the α1 to the exclusion of ÎČ subunit. The majority of these mutations are identified in the M2âM3 loop of the α1 subunit. Here we demonstrate that α1 ÎČ GlyR channel function is less sensitive to hyperekplexia-mimicking mutations introduced into the M2âM3 loop of the ÎČ than into the α1 subunit. This suggests that the M2âM3 loop of the α subunit dominates the ÎČ subunit in gating the α1 ÎČ GlyR channel. A further attempt to determine the possible mechanism underlying this phenomenon by using the voltage-clamp fluorometry technique revealed that agonist-induced conformational changes in the ÎČ subunit M2âM3 loop were uncoupled from α1 ÎČ GlyR channel gating. This is in contrast to the α subunit, where the M2âM3 loop conformational changes were shown to be directly coupled to α1 ÎČ GlyR channel gating. Finally, based on analysis of α1 ÎČ chimeric receptors, we demonstrate that the structural components responsible for this are distributed throughout the ÎČ subunit, implying that the ÎČ subunit has evolved without the functional constraint of a normal gating pathway within it. Our study provides a possible explanation of why hereditary hyperekplexia-causing mutations that modify α1 ÎČ GlyR channel function are almost exclusively located in the α1 to the exclusion of the ÎČ subunit
The Cosmological Constant
This is a review of the physics and cosmology of the cosmological constant.
Focusing on recent developments, I present a pedagogical overview of cosmology
in the presence of a cosmological constant, observational constraints on its
magnitude, and the physics of a small (and potentially nonzero) vacuum energy.Comment: 50 pages. Submitted to Living Reviews in Relativity
(http://www.livingreviews.org/), December 199
Transverse energy production and charged-particle multiplicity at midrapidity in various systems from to 200 GeV
Measurements of midrapidity charged particle multiplicity distributions,
, and midrapidity transverse-energy distributions,
, are presented for a variety of collision systems and energies.
Included are distributions for AuAu collisions at ,
130, 62.4, 39, 27, 19.6, 14.5, and 7.7 GeV, CuCu collisions at
and 62.4 GeV, CuAu collisions at
GeV, UU collisions at GeV,
Au collisions at GeV, HeAu collisions at
GeV, and collisions at
GeV. Centrality-dependent distributions at midrapidity are presented in terms
of the number of nucleon participants, , and the number of
constituent quark participants, . For all collisions
down to GeV, it is observed that the midrapidity data
are better described by scaling with than scaling with . Also presented are estimates of the Bjorken energy density,
, and the ratio of to ,
the latter of which is seen to be constant as a function of centrality for all
systems.Comment: 706 authors, 32 pages, 20 figures, 34 tables, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010,
2011, and 2012 data. v2 is version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Measurement of the production of a W boson in association with a charm quark in pp collisions at âs = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
The production of a W boson in association with a single charm quark is studied using 4.6 fbâ1 of pp collision data at sâ = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. In events in which a W boson decays to an electron or muon, the charm quark is tagged either by its semileptonic decay to a muon or by the presence of a charmed meson. The integrated and differential cross sections as a function of the pseudorapidity of the lepton from the W-boson decay are measured. Results are compared to the predictions of next-to-leading-order QCD calculations obtained from various parton distribution function parameterisations. The ratio of the strange-to-down sea-quark distributions is determined to be 0.96+0.26â0.30 at Q 2 = 1.9 GeV2, which supports the hypothesis of an SU(3)-symmetric composition of the light-quark sea. Additionally, the cross-section ratio Ï(W + +cÂŻÂŻ)/Ï(W â + c) is compared to the predictions obtained using parton distribution function parameterisations with different assumptions about the sâsÂŻÂŻÂŻ quark asymmetry
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