1,226 research outputs found
Protecting the proteome: Eukaryotic cotranslational quality control pathways.
The correct decoding of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) into proteins is an essential cellular task. The translational process is monitored by several quality control (QC) mechanisms that recognize defective translation complexes in which ribosomes are stalled on substrate mRNAs. Stalled translation complexes occur when defects in the mRNA template, the translation machinery, or the nascent polypeptide arrest the ribosome during translation elongation or termination. These QC events promote the disassembly of the stalled translation complex and the recycling and/or degradation of the individual mRNA, ribosomal, and/or nascent polypeptide components, thereby clearing the cell of improper translation products and defective components of the translation machinery
Modeling Amazon Deforestation for Policy Purposes
Brazil has long ago removed most of the perverse government incentives that stimulated massive deforestation in the Amazon in the 70s and 80s, but one highly controversial policy remains: Road building. While data is now abundantly available due to the constant satellite surveillance of the Amazon, the analytical methods typically used to analyze the impact of roads on natural vegetation cover are methodologically weak and not very helpful to guide public policy. This paper discusses the respective weaknesses of typical GIS analysis and typical municipality level regression analysis, and shows what would be needed to construct an ideal model of deforestation processes. It also presents an alternative approach that is much less demanding in terms of modeling and estimation and more useful for policy makers as well.Deforestation, Amazon, Brazil, econometric modeling
Unbiased sampling of globular lattice proteins in three dimensions
We present a Monte Carlo method that allows efficient and unbiased sampling
of Hamiltonian walks on a cubic lattice. Such walks are self-avoiding and visit
each lattice site exactly once. They are often used as simple models of
globular proteins, upon adding suitable local interactions. Our algorithm can
easily be equipped with such interactions, but we study here mainly the
flexible homopolymer case where each conformation is generated with uniform
probability. We argue that the algorithm is ergodic and has dynamical exponent
z=0. We then use it to study polymers of size up to 64^3 = 262144 monomers.
Results are presented for the effective interaction between end points, and the
interaction with the boundaries of the system
An integrable spin chain for the SL(2,R)/U(1) black hole sigma model
We introduce a spin chain based on finite-dimensional spin-1/2 SU(2)
representations but with a non-hermitian `Hamiltonian' and show, using mostly
analytical techniques, that it is described at low energies by the SL(2,R)/U(1)
Euclidian black hole Conformal Field Theory. This identification goes beyond
the appearance of a non-compact spectrum: we are also able to determine the
density of states, and show that it agrees with the formulas in [J. Math. Phys.
42, 2961 (2001)] and [JHEP 04, 014 (2002)], hence providing a direct `physical
measurement' of the associated reflection amplitude.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, in RevTeX. Corrected some typo
GPsâ strategies in exploring the preschool childâs wellbeing in the paediatric consultation
Background:
Although General Practitioners (GPs) are uniquely placed to identify children with emotional, social, and behavioural problems, they succeed in identifying only a small number of them. The aim of this article is to explore the strategies, methods, and tools employed by GPs in the assessment of the preschool childâs emotional, mental, social, and behavioural health. We look at how GPs address parental care of the child in general and in situations where GPs have a particular awareness of the child.
Method:
Twenty-eight Danish GPs were purposively selected to take part in a qualitative study which combined focus-group discussions, observation of child consultations, and individual interviews with GPs.
Results:
Analysis of the data suggests that GPs have developed a set of methods, and strategies to assess the preschool child and parental care of the child. They look beyond paying narrow attention to the physical health of the child and they have expanded their practice to include the relations and interactions in the consultation room. The physical examination of the child continues to play a central role in doctor-child communication.
Conclusion:
The participating GPsâ strategies helped them to assess the wellbeing of the preschool child but they often find it difficult to share their impressions with parents
Tetromino tilings and the Tutte polynomial
We consider tiling rectangles of size 4m x 4n by T-shaped tetrominoes. Each
tile is assigned a weight that depends on its orientation and position on the
lattice. For a particular choice of the weights, the generating function of
tilings is shown to be the evaluation of the multivariate Tutte polynomial
Z\_G(Q,v) (known also to physicists as the partition function of the Q-state
Potts model) on an (m-1) x (n-1) rectangle G, where the parameter Q and the
edge weights v can take arbitrary values depending on the tile weights.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Bulk, surface and corner free energy series for the chromatic polynomial on the square and triangular lattices
We present an efficient algorithm for computing the partition function of the
q-colouring problem (chromatic polynomial) on regular two-dimensional lattice
strips. Our construction involves writing the transfer matrix as a product of
sparse matrices, each of dimension ~ 3^m, where m is the number of lattice
spacings across the strip. As a specific application, we obtain the large-q
series of the bulk, surface and corner free energies of the chromatic
polynomial. This extends the existing series for the square lattice by 32
terms, to order q^{-79}. On the triangular lattice, we verify Baxter's
analytical expression for the bulk free energy (to order q^{-40}), and we are
able to conjecture exact product formulae for the surface and corner free
energies.Comment: 17 pages. Version 2: added 4 further term to the serie
Critical properties of joint spin and Fortuin-Kasteleyn observables in the two-dimensional Potts model
The two-dimensional Potts model can be studied either in terms of the
original Q-component spins, or in the geometrical reformulation via
Fortuin-Kasteleyn (FK) clusters. While the FK representation makes sense for
arbitrary real values of Q by construction, it was only shown very recently
that the spin representation can be promoted to the same level of generality.
In this paper we show how to define the Potts model in terms of observables
that simultaneously keep track of the spin and FK degrees of freedom. This is
first done algebraically in terms of a transfer matrix that couples three
different representations of a partition algebra. Using this, one can study
correlation functions involving any given number of propagating spin clusters
with prescribed colours, each of which contains any given number of distinct FK
clusters. For 0 <= Q <= 4 the corresponding critical exponents are all of the
Kac form h_{r,s}, with integer indices r,s that we determine exactly both in
the bulk and in the boundary versions of the problem. In particular, we find
that the set of points where an FK cluster touches the hull of its surrounding
spin cluster has fractal dimension d_{2,1} = 2 - 2 h_{2,1}. If one constrains
this set to points where the neighbouring spin cluster extends to infinity, we
show that the dimension becomes d_{1,3} = 2 - 2 h_{1,3}. Our results are
supported by extensive transfer matrix and Monte Carlo computations.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 2 table
Exact enumeration of Hamiltonian circuits, walks, and chains in two and three dimensions
We present an algorithm for enumerating exactly the number of Hamiltonian
chains on regular lattices in low dimensions. By definition, these are sets of
k disjoint paths whose union visits each lattice vertex exactly once. The
well-known Hamiltonian circuits and walks appear as the special cases k=0 and
k=1 respectively. In two dimensions, we enumerate chains on L x L square
lattices up to L=12, walks up to L=17, and circuits up to L=20. Some results
for three dimensions are also given. Using our data we extract several
quantities of physical interest
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