Nonlinear Dynamics in the Resonance Lineshape of NbN Superconducting Resonators

In this work we report on unusual nonlinear dynamics measured in the resonance response of NbN superconducting microwave resonators. The nonlinear dynamics, occurring at relatively low input powers (2-4 orders of magnitude lower than Nb), and which include among others, jumps in the resonance lineshape, hysteresis loops changing direction and resonance frequency shift, are measured herein using varying input power, applied magnetic field, white noise and rapid frequency sweeps. Based on these measurement results, we consider a hypothesis according to which local heating of weak links forming at the boundaries of the NbN grains are responsible for the observed behavior, and we show that most of the experimental results are qualitatively consistent with such hypothesis.Comment: Updated version (of cond-mat/0504582), 16 figure

Adherence to a behavioral weight loss treatment program enhances weight loss and improvements in biomarkers

Objectives: To describe participants' adherence to multiple components (attendance, energy intake, fat gram, exercise goals, and self-monitoring eating and exercise behaviors) of a standard behavioral treatment program (SBT) for weight loss and how adherence to these components may influence weight loss and biomarkers (triglycerides, low density lipoproteins [LDL], high density lipoprotein, and insulin) during the intensive and less-intensive intervention phases. Methods: A secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial consisting of a SBT with either fat-restricted standard or lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. The 12-month intervention was delivered in 33 group sessions. The first six months reflected the intensive phase; the second six months, the less-intensive intervention phase. We conducted the analysis without regard to treatment assignment. Eligible participants included overweight/obese adults (N = 176; mean body mass index = 34.0 kg/m2). The sample was 86.9% female, 70.5% White, and 44.4 ± 8.6 years old. The outcome measures included weight and biomarkers. Results: There was a significant decline in adherence to each treatment component over time (P < 0.0001). In the first six months, adherence to attendance, self-monitoring and the energy goal were significantly associated with greater weight loss (P < 0.05). Adherence to attendance and exercise remained significantly associated with weight loss in the second six months (P < 0.05). Adherence to attendance, self-monitoring and exercise had indirect effects through weight loss on LDL, triglycerides, and insulin (P < 0.05). Conclusions: We observed a decline in adherence to each treatment component as the intervention intensity was reduced. Adherence to multiple treatment components was associated with greater weight loss and improvements in biomarkers. Future research needs to focus on improving and maintaining adherence to all components of the treatment protocol to promote weight loss and maintenance. © 2009 Acharya et al

Nutrition Strategies for Triathlon

Contemporary sports nutrition guidelines recommend that each athlete develop a personalised, periodised and practical approach to eating that allows him or her to train hard, recover and adapt optimally, stay free of illness and injury and compete at their best at peak races. Competitive triathletes undertake a heavy training programme to prepare for three different sports while undertaking races varying in duration from 20 min to 10 h. The everyday diet should be adequate in energy availability, provide CHO in varying amounts and timing around workouts according to the benefits of training with low or high CHO availability and spread high-quality protein over the day to maximise the adaptive response to each session. Race nutrition requires a targeted and well-practised plan that maintains fuel and hydration goals over the duration of the specific event, according to the opportunities provided by the race and other challenges, such as a hot environment. Supplements and sports foods can make a small contribution to a sports nutrition plan, when medical supplements are used under supervision to prevent/treat nutrient deficiencies (e.g. iron or vitamin D) or when sports foods provide a convenient source of nutrients when it is impractical to eat whole foods. Finally, a few evidence-based performance supplements may contribute to optimal race performance when used according to best practice protocols to suit the triathlete’s goals and individual responsiveness

Outbreak of Aeromonas hydrophila wound infections association with mud football

On 16 February 2002, a total of 26 people presented to the emergency department of the local hospital in the rural town of Collie in southwest Western Australia with many infected scratches and pustules distributed over their bodies. All of the patients had participated in a “mud football” competition the previous day, in which there had been 100 participants. One patient required removal of an infected thumbnail, and another required surgical debridement of an infected toe. Aeromonas hydrophila was isolated from all 3 patients from whom swab specimens were obtained. To prepare the mud football fields, a paddock was irrigated with water that was pumped from an adjacent river during the 1-month period before the competition. A. hydrophila was subsequently isolated from a water sample obtained from the river. This is the first published report of an outbreak of A. hydrophila wound infections associated with exposure to mud.Hassan Vally, Amanda Whittle, Scott Cameron, Gary K. Dowse and Tony Watso

Detection of Vacuum Birefringence with Intense Laser Pulses

We propose a novel technique that promises hope of being the first to directly detect a polarization in the quantum electrodynamic (QED) vacuum. The technique is based upon the use of ultra-short pulses of light circulating in low dispersion optical resonators. We show that the technique circumvents the need for large scale liquid helium cooled magnets, and more importantly avoids the experimental pitfalls that plague existing experiments that make use of these magnets. Likely improvements in the performance of optics and lasers would result in the ability to observe vacuum polarization in an experiment of only a few hours duration.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

The Local Nanohertz Gravitational-Wave Landscape From Supermassive Black Hole Binaries

Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) in the 10 million to 10 billion $M_\odot$ range form in galaxy mergers, and live in galactic nuclei with large and poorly constrained concentrations of gas and stars. There are currently no observations of merging SMBHBs--- it is in fact possible that they stall at their final parsec of separation and never merge. While LIGO has detected high frequency GWs, SMBHBs emit GWs in the nanohertz to millihertz band. This is inaccessible to ground-based interferometers, but possible with Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs). Using data from local galaxies in the 2 Micron All-Sky Survey, together with galaxy merger rates from Illustris, we find that there are on average $91\pm7$ sources emitting GWs in the PTA band, and $7\pm2$ binaries which will never merge. Local unresolved SMBHBs can contribute to GW background anisotropy at a level of $\sim20\%$, and if the GW background can be successfully isolated, GWs from at least one local SMBHB can be detected in 10 years.Comment: submitted to Nature Astronomy (reformatted for arXiv

Ecology of a North Sea pockmark with an active methane seep

ABSTRACT: At a large North Sea pockmark, with active methane seeps, surface sediments were found to have higher insoluble sulphide concentrations than sedlments from the surrounding area. The fauna of the pockmark was characterized by 2 species which have not pi-evlously been reported from the Fladen Ground in the northern North Sea. These species were a b~valve, Thyasira sarsi (which is known to contain endosymbiotic sulphur-oxidising bacteria) and a mouthless and gutless nematode, Astomonerna sp., which also contains endosymbiotic bacteria The nematode was the dominant meiofauna species in the pockmark sediments. Both macro-lnfauna and total nematodes were in low abundance in samples taken from the base of the pockmark. Sediment samples from the pockmark contained numerous otoliths, implying that substantial winnowing of the sediment had taken place. This was supported by studies on the sulphide concentrations in the sediment which showed multiple layering of the sediments on the sides of the pockmark, suggesting displacement. The carbon isotope compositions (6I3c) of the tissues of benthic animals from in and around the pockmark were generally in the range -16 to -2O%, indicating that little methane-derived carbon was contributing to their nutrition. T sarsi had the most 13c-depleted tissues, -31.4 to -35.1 L, confirming the nutritional dependence of this species on chemoautotrophic bacteria that utilize reduced sulphur

Regulation of caspase-3 processing by cIAP2 controls the switch between pro-inflammatory activation and cell death in microglia.

Cell Death and Disease is an open-access journal published by Nature Publishing Group. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons licence, users will need to obtain permission from the licence holder to reproduce the material.The activation of microglia, resident immune cells of the central nervous system, and inflammation-mediated neurotoxicity are typical features of neurodegenerative diseases, for example, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. An unexpected role of caspase-3, commonly known to have executioner role for apoptosis, was uncovered in the microglia activation process. A central question emerging from this finding is what prevents caspase-3 during the microglia activation from killing those cells? Caspase-3 activation occurs as a two-step process, where the zymogen is first cleaved by upstream caspases, such as caspase-8, to form intermediate, yet still active, p19/p12 complex; thereafter, autocatalytic processing generates the fully mature p17/p12 form of the enzyme. Here, we show that the induction of cellular inhibitor of apoptosis protein 2 (cIAP2) expression upon microglia activation prevents the conversion of caspase-3 p19 subunit to p17 subunit and is responsible for restraining caspase-3 in terms of activity and subcellular localization. We demonstrate that counteracting the repressive effect of cIAP2 on caspase-3 activation, using small interfering RNA targeting cIAP2 or a SMAC mimetic such as the BV6 compound, reduced the pro-inflammatory activation of microglia cells and promoted their death. We propose that the different caspase-3 functions in microglia, and potentially other cell types, reside in the active caspase-3 complexes formed. These results also could indicate cIAP2 as a possible therapeutic target to modulate microglia pro-inflammatory activation and associated neurotoxicity observed in neurodegenerative disorders

Vapor–solid synthesis of monolithic single-crystalline CoP nanowire electrodes for efficient and robust water electrolysis

Electrochemical water splitting into hydrogen and oxygen is a promising technology for sustainable energy storage. The development of earth-abundant transition metal phosphides (TMPs) to catalyze the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and TMP-derived oxy-hydroxides to catalyze the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has recently drawn considerable attention. However, most monolithically integrated metal phosphide electrodes are prepared by laborious multi-step methods and their operational stability at high current densities has been rarely studied. Herein, we report a novel vapor–solid synthesis of single-crystalline cobalt phosphide nanowires (CoP NWs) on a porous Co foam and demonstrate their use in overall water splitting. The CoP NWs grown on the entire surface of the porous Co foam ligaments have a large aspect ratio, and hence are able to provide a large catalytically accessible surface over a given geometrical area. Comprehensive investigation shows that under the OER conditions CoP NWs are progressively and conformally converted to CoOOH through electrochemical in situ oxidation/ dephosphorization; the latter serving as an active species to catalyze the OER. The in situ oxidized electrode shows exceptional electrocatalytic performance for the OER in 1.0 M KOH, delivering 100 mA cm-2 at an overpotential () of merely 300 mV and a small Tafel slope of 78 mV dec1 as well as excellent stability at various current densities. Meanwhile, the CoP NW electrode exhibits superior catalytic activity for the HER in the same electrolyte, affording 100 mA cm-2 at = 244 mV and showing outstanding stability. An alkaline electrolyzer composed of two symmetrical CoP NW electrodes can deliver 10 and 100 mA cm-2 at low cell voltages of 1.56 and 1.78 V, respectively. The CoP NW electrolyzer demonstrates exceptional long-term stability for overall water splitting, capable of working at 20 and 100 mA cm-2 for 1000 h without obvious degradation.L. F. Liu acknowledges the financial support of a FCT Investigator grant (No. IF/01595/2014) and exploratory grant (No. IF/ 01595/2014/CP1247/CT0001) awarded by the Portuguese Foundation of Science & Technology (FCT). W. Li and D. H. Xiong are thankful for the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action COFUND programme (NanoTrainforGrowth, grant No. 600375) for postdoctoral fellowships. This work was also partly financed by the European Commission Horizon 2020 project “CritCat” (Grant No. 686053).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio