Dirac Surface States and Nature of Superconductivity in Noncentrosymmetric BiPd

In non-magnetic bulk materials, inversion symmetry protects the spin degeneracy. If the bulk crystal structure lacks a centre of inversion, however, spin-orbit interactions lift the spin degeneracy, leading to a Rashba metal whose Fermi surfaces exhibit an intricate spin texture. In superconducting Rashba metals a pairing wavefunction constructed from these complex spin structures will generally contain both singlet and triplet character. Here we examine the possible triplet components of the order parameter in noncentrosymmetric BiPd, combining for the first time in a noncentrosymmetric superconductor macroscopic characterization, atomic-scale ultra-low-temperature scanning tunnelling spectroscopy, and relativistic first-principles calculations. While the superconducting state of BiPd appears topologically trivial, consistent with Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory with an order parameter governed by a single isotropic s-wave gap, we show that the material exhibits Dirac-cone surface states with a helical spin polarization.Comment: replaced by published versio

Ecuador Today

Ecuador is a country that arouses interest in its current situation. After an economic boom, it is now going through a severe crisis. At the end of a decade of an authoritarian government identifying itself with “21st century socialism”, human rights and freedom of expression abuses are being exposed. As the facts are being laid bare, an entire system of abuse of power and corruption from the government is emerging. The present work brings together various papers focusing on these realities. They tackle several aspects of the country’s context today and in the immediate past: poverty, economic changes, political power and its relationship to social movements, extractivism and its impacts, art and literature. Despite interest in this subject, the literature on Ecuador’s realities is quite scant. That is why we hope the present publication will contribute meaningfully to further knowledge about the country

Re:Chicago

https://via.library.depaul.edu/museum-publications/1012/thumbnail.jp

Route to achieving perfect B-site ordering in double perovskite thin films

Double perovskites (DP, A$_2$BB’O$_6$) exhibit a breadth of multifunctional properties with a huge potential range of applications, including magneto-optic and spintronic devices. However, spontaneous cation ordering is limited by the similar size and charge of B and B’ cations. We introduce a route to stimulate B-site rock-salt ordering. By growing thin films on (111)-oriented substrates, ‘in-plane’ strain acts on the intrinsically tilted oxygen octahedra of the DP and produces two different B-site cages (in size and shape), stimulating spontaneous cation ordering. For the ferromagnetic insulator La$_2$CoMnO$_6$, clear Co/Mn ordering was achieved by growing on (111)-oriented substrates. The difference in B-site cages was further enhanced when grown under minor (111) in-plane compressive strain, resulting in long-range ordering with a saturation magnetization of 5.8 μB/formula unit (f.u.), close to the theoretical 6 μB/f.u., without antiferromagnetic behavior. Our approach enables the study of many new ordered DPs which have never been made before.This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) (Advanced Investigator grant ERC-2009-AdG-247276-NOVOX), the EPSRC (Equipment Account Grant EP/K035282/1) and the Isaac Newton Trust (Minute 13.38(k)). LJ thank the support of the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement 312483—ESTEEM2 (Integrated Infrastructure Initiative-I3). SuperSTEM is the UK National Facility for Aberration Corrected STEM funded by EPSRC

LRRK2 Phosphorylates Tubulin-Associated Tau but Not the Free Molecule: LRRK2-Mediated Regulation of the Tau-Tubulin Association and Neurite Outgrowth

Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2), a large protein kinase containing multi-functional domains, has been identified as the causal molecule for autosomal-dominant Parkinson's disease (PD). In the present study, we demonstrated for the first time that (i) LRRK2 interacts with tau in a tubulin-dependent manner; (ii) LRRK2 directly phosphorylates tubulin-associated tau, but not free tau; (iii) LRRK2 phosphorylates tau at Thr181 as one of the target sites; and (iv) The PD-associated LRRK2 mutations, G2019S and I2020T, elevated the degree of tau-phosphorylation. These results provide direct proof that tau is a physiological substrate for LRRK2. Furthermore, we revealed that LRRK2-mediated phosphorylation of tau reduces its tubulin-binding ability. Our results suggest that LRRK2 plays an important role as a physiological regulator for phosphorylation-mediated dissociation of tau from microtubules, which is an integral aspect of microtubule dynamics essential for neurite outgrowth and axonal transport

Adult zebrafish as a model organism for behavioural genetics

Recent research has demonstrated the suitability of adult zebrafish to model some aspects of complex behaviour. Studies of reward behaviour, learning and memory, aggression, anxiety and sleep strongly suggest that conserved regulatory processes underlie behaviour in zebrafish and mammals. The isolation and molecular analysis of zebrafish behavioural mutants is now starting, allowing the identification of novel behavioural control genes. As a result of this, studies of adult zebrafish are now helping to uncover the genetic pathways and neural circuits that control vertebrate behaviour

Glutamate and Synaptic Plasticity Systems and Smoking Behavior: Results from a Genetic Association Study

Smoking behavior is a multifactorial phenotype with significant heritability. Identifying the specific loci that influence smoking behavior could provide important etiological insights and facilitate the development of treatments to further reduce smoking related mortality. Although several studies pointed to different candidate genes for smoking, there is still a need for replication especially in samples from different countries. In the present study, we investigated whether 21 positive signals for smoking behavior from these studies are replicated in a sample of 531 blood donors from the Brazilian population. The polymorphisms were chosen based on their representativeness of different candidate biologic systems, strength of previous evidence, location and allele frequencies. By genotyping with the Sequenom MassARRAY iPLEX platform and subsequent statistical analysis using Plink software, we show that two of the SNPs studied, in the SLC1A2 (rs1083658) and ACTN1 (rs2268983) genes, were associated with smoking behavior in our study population. These genes are involved in crucial aspects of nicotine dependence, glutamate system and synaptic plasticity, and as such, are biologically plausible candidates that merit further molecular analyses so as to clarify their potential role in smoking behavior

Timescales of Multineuronal Activity Patterns Reflect Temporal Structure of Visual Stimuli

The investigation of distributed coding across multiple neurons in the cortex remains to this date a challenge. Our current understanding of collective encoding of information and the relevant timescales is still limited. Most results are restricted to disparate timescales, focused on either very fast, e.g., spike-synchrony, or slow timescales, e.g., firing rate. Here, we investigated systematically multineuronal activity patterns evolving on different timescales, spanning the whole range from spike-synchrony to mean firing rate. Using multi-electrode recordings from cat visual cortex, we show that cortical responses can be described as trajectories in a high-dimensional pattern space. Patterns evolve on a continuum of coexisting timescales that strongly relate to the temporal properties of stimuli. Timescales consistent with the time constants of neuronal membranes and fast synaptic transmission (5–20 ms) play a particularly salient role in encoding a large amount of stimulus-related information. Thus, to faithfully encode the properties of visual stimuli the brain engages multiple neurons into activity patterns evolving on multiple timescales