6,238 research outputs found
Long-Term Dynamics and the Orbital Inclinations of the Classical Kuiper Belt Objects
We numerically integrated the orbits of 1458 particles in the region of the
classical Kuiper Belt (41 AU < a < 47 AU) to explore the role of dynamical
instabilities in sculpting the inclination distribution of the classical Kuiper
Belt Objects (KBOs). We find that the selective removal of low-inclination
objects by overlapping secular resonances (nu_17 and nu_18) acts to raise the
mean inclination of the surviving population of particles over 4 billion years
of interactions with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, though these
long-term dynamical effects do not themselves appear to explain the discovery
of KBOs with inclinations near 30 degrees. Our integrations also imply that
after 3 billion years of interaction with the massive planets, high inclination
KBOs more efficiently supply Neptune-encountering objects, the likely
progenitors of short-period comets, Centaurs, and scattered KBOs. The secular
resonances at low inclinations may indirectly cause this effect by weeding out
objects unprotected by mean motion resonances during the first 3 billion years.Comment: 23 pages, including 10 figures. Accepted for publication in A
DEVELOPMENT OF A MOLDABLE COMPOSITE BONE GRAFT SUBSTITUTE RELEASING ANTIBACTERIAL AND OSTEOGENIC DRUGS
Large infected bone defects (IBD) are very complicated to treat due to their high variability; they often require multiple procedures. Bone autografts are the gold standard for treatment but have several drawbacks, such as a need for a second surgery site, limited grafting material, and donor site morbidity. The objective of this research was to develop a moldable synthetic bone grafting material capable of releasing both antimicrobial and osteogenic drugs over a clinically relevant time course for the treatment of IBDs. Current treatment methods for large IBDs require two separate procedures to treat the bone defect and the infection.
This research sought to combine these two procedures into one implantable composite bone graft substitute for the treatment IBDs. To begin, the degradation and mechanical properties of the calcium sulfate (CS) based composite material were evaluated for different compositions. Next, the controlled drug release profiles from the composite was achieved by using a shell and core system incorporating poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) microspheres (PLGAms). The release of vancomycin from the shell began immediately and continued over the course of 6 weeks, while the release of simvastatin from the core was delayed before being released over 4 weeks. Next, an infected, critically-sized rat femoral defect model was used to test different treatment methods with and without the composite bone graft substitute. Animals treated with locally released antibiotics had survivorship rates 24% higher than those treated with systemic antibiotics, and animals that received both antibiotics and an osteogenic drug had an increased amount of bone formation at 12 weeks compared to controls.
Finally, several different anti-biofilm agents were evaluated for their ability to inhibit and/or disrupt the growth of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) biofilms in vitro. Lysostaphin was the only drug investigated that was able to both inhibit and disrupt S. aureus biofilms. Furthermore, lysostaphin encapsulated into PLGAms maintained its bioactivity and may be useful for future incorporation into biofilm-combating materials. The bone grafting material developed here can be used to locally deliver drugs in a temporally controlled manner to reduce the number of procedures necessary for the treatment of complex IBDs
A Pan-STARRS1 Search for Planet Nine
We present a search for Planet Nine using the second data release of the
Pan-STARRS1survey. We rule out the existence of a Planet Nine with the
characteristics of that predicted in Brown & Batygin (2021) to a 50% completion
depth of . This survey, along with previous analyses of the Zwicky
Transient Facility (ZTF) and Dark EnergySurvey (DES) data, rules out 78% of the
Brown \& Batygin parameter space. Much of the remaining parameter space is at
in regions near and in the area where the northern galactic plane
crosses the ecliptic.Comment: AJ, in pres
Starvation Resistance is Associated with Developmentally Specified Changes in Sleep, Feeding and Metabolic Rate
Food shortage represents a primary challenge to survival, and animals have adapted diverse developmental, physiological and behavioral strategies to survive when food becomes unavailable. Starvation resistance is strongly influenced by ecological and evolutionary history, yet the genetic basis for the evolution of starvation resistance remains poorly understood. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster provides a powerful model for leveraging experimental evolution to investigate traits associated with starvation resistance. While control populations only live a few days without food, selection for starvation resistance results in populations that can survive weeks. We have previously shown that selection for starvation resistance results in increased sleep and reduced feeding in adult flies. Here, we investigate the ontogeny of starvation resistance-associated behavioral and metabolic phenotypes in these experimentally selected flies. We found that selection for starvation resistance resulted in delayed development and a reduction in metabolic rate in larvae that persisted into adulthood, suggesting that these traits may allow for the accumulation of energy stores and an increase in body size within these selected populations. In addition, we found that larval sleep was largely unaffected by starvation selection and that feeding increased during the late larval stages, suggesting that experimental evolution for starvation resistance produces developmentally specified changes in behavioral regulation. Together, these findings reveal a critical role for development in the evolution of starvation resistance and indicate that selection can selectively influence behavior during defined developmental time points
The Short Rotation Period of Hi'iaka, Haumea's Largest Satellite
Hi'iaka is the larger outer satellite of the dwarf planet Haumea. Using
relative photometry from the Hubble Space Telescope and Magellan and a phase
dispersion minimization analysis, we have identified the rotation period of
Hi'iaka to be ~9.8 hrs (double-peaked). This is ~120 times faster than its
orbital period, creating new questions about the formation of this system and
possible tidal evolution. The rapid rotation suggests that Hi'iaka could have a
significant obliquity and spin precession that could be visible in light curves
within a few years. We then turn to an investigation of what we learn about the
(presently unclear) formation of the Haumea system and family based on this
unexpectedly rapid rotation rate. We explore the importance of the initial
semi-major axis and rotation period in tidal evolution theory and find they
strongly influence the time required to despin to synchronous rotation,
relevant to understanding a wide variety of satellite and binary systems. We
find that despinning tides do not necessarily lead to synchronous spin periods
for Hi'iaka, even if it formed near the Roche limit. Therefore the short
rotation period of Hi'iaka does not rule out significant tidal evolution.
Hi'iaka's spin period is also consistent with formation near its current
location and spin up due to Haumea-centric impactors.Comment: 21 pages with 6 figures, to be published in The Astronomical Journa
Effective equations governing an active poroelastic medium
In this work we consider the spatial homogenization of a coupled transport and fluid-structure interaction model, to the end of deriving a system of effective equations describing the flow, elastic deformation, and transport in an active poroelastic medium. The `active' nature of the material results from a morphoelastic response to a chemical stimulant, in which the growth timescale is strongly separated from other elastic timescales. The resulting effective model is broadly relevant to the study of biological tissue growth, geophysical flows (e.g. swelling in coals and clays) and a wide range of industrial applications (e.g. absorbant hygiene products). The key contribution of this work is the derivation of a system of homogenized partial differential equations describing macroscale growth, coupled to transport of solute, that explicitly incorporates details of the structure and dynamics of the microscopic system, and, moreover, admits finite growth and deformation at the pore-scale. The resulting macroscale model comprises a Biot-type system, augmented with additional terms pertaining to growth, coupled to an advection-reaction-diffusion equation. The resultant system of effective equations is then compared to other recent models under a selection of appropriate simplifying asymptotic limits
The chameleon groups of Richard J. Thompson: automorphisms and dynamics
The automorphism groups of several of Thompson's countable groups of
piecewise linear homeomorphisms of the line and circle are computed and it is
shown that the outer automorphism groups of these groups are relatively small.
These results can be interpreted as stability results for certain structures of
PL functions on the circle. Machinery is developed to relate the structures on
the circle to corresponding structures on the line
The Short Rotation Period of Nereid
We determine the period, p = 11.52 \pm 0.14 h, and a light curve peak-to-peak
amplitude, a = 0.029 \pm 0.003 magnitudes, of the Neptunian irregular satellite
Nereid. If the light curve variation is due to albedo variations across the
surface, rather than solely to the shape of Nereid variations, the rotation
period would be a factor of two shorter. In either case, such a rotation period
and light curve amplitude, together with Nereid's orbital period, p=360.14
days, imply that Nereid is almost certainly in a regular rotation state, rather
than the chaotic rotation state suggested by Schaefer and Schaefer (1988,2000)
and Dobrovolskis (1995).
Assuming that Nereid is perfectly spherical, the albedo variation is 3%
across the observed surface. Assuming a uniform geometric albedo, the observed
cross sectional area varies by 3%. We caution that the lightcurve found in this
paper only sets limits on the combination of albedo and physical irregularity
and that we cannot determine the orientation of Nereid's spin axis from our
data.Comment: Accepted by ApJ Letters, 11 pages (incl. 1 figure
- …