4,749 research outputs found
Collider constraints on light pseudoscalars
We investigate the bounds on light pseudoscalars that arise from a variety of
collider searches. Special attention is thereby devoted to the mass regions
and , in which a meaningful
theoretical description has to include estimates of non-perturbative effects
such as the mixing of the pseudoscalar with QCD bound states. A compendium of
formulas that allows to deal with the relevant corrections is provided. It
should prove useful for the interpretation of future LHC searches for light
CP-odd spin-0 states.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables; v3: new draft includes the constraints
from CMS-PAS-HIG-17-024 and CMS-PAS-HIG-17-029; a similar version has been
published in JHEP. also contained in arXiv:1803.1037
Fitted HBT radii versus space-time variances in flow-dominated models
The inability of otherwise successful dynamical models to reproduce the ``HBT
radii'' extracted from two-particle correlations measured at the Relativistic
Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) is known as the ``RHIC HBT Puzzle.'' Most comparisons
between models and experiment exploit the fact that for Gaussian sources the
HBT radii agree with certain combinations of the space-time widths of the
source which can be directly computed from the emission function, without
having to evaluate, at significant expense, the two-particle correlation
function. We here study the validity of this approach for realistic emission
function models some of which exhibit significant deviations from simple
Gaussian behaviour. By Fourier transforming the emission function we compute
the 2-particle correlation function and fit it with a Gaussian to partially
mimic the procedure used for measured correlation functions. We describe a
novel algorithm to perform this Gaussian fit analytically. We find that for
realistic hydrodynamic models the HBT radii extracted from this procedure agree
better with the data than the values previously extracted from the space-time
widths of the emission function. Although serious discrepancies between the
calculated and measured HBT radii remain, we show that a more
``apples-to-apples'' comparison of models with data can play an important role
in any eventually successful theoretical description of RHIC HBT data.Comment: 12 pages, 16 color figure
A Surfactant Enables Efficient Membrane Spanning by Non-Aggregating DNA-Based Ion Channels.
Funder: Friedrich Naumann FoundationFunder: Cambridge Philosophical SocietyFunder: Winton Programme for the Physics of SustainabilityFunder: Jane Bourque-Driscoll FundDNA nanotechnology makes use of hydrophobically modified constructs to create synthetic membrane protein mimics. However, nucleic acid structures exhibit poor insertion efficiency, leading to a low activity of membrane-spanning DNA protein mimics. It is suggested that non-ionic surfactants improve insertion efficiency, partly by disrupting hydrophobicity-mediated clusters. Here, we employed confocal microscopy and single-molecule transmembrane current measurements to assess the effects of the non-ionic surfactant octylpolyoxyethylene (oPOE) on the clustering behavior and membrane activity of cholesterol-modified DNA nanostructures. Our findings uncover the role of aggregation in preventing bilayer interactions of hydrophobically decorated constructs, and we highlight that premixing DNA structures with the surfactant does not disrupt the cholesterol-mediated aggregates. However, we observed the surfactant's strong insertion-facilitating effect, particularly when introduced to the sample separately from DNA. Critically, we report a highly efficient membrane-spanning DNA construct from combining a non-aggregating design with the addition of the oPOE surfactant.DM acknowledges funding from the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, project ref. 1948702). MS acknowledges funding from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, the Jane Bourque-Driscoll Fund and the Cambridge Philosophical Society. UFK acknowledges the ERC Consolidator Grant (De-signer-Pores 647144)
Heterogeneity of spacer lengths in circles of amplified ribosomal DNA of two insect species, Dytiscus marginalis and Acheta domesticus
No abstract availabl
Characterization of lipid composition and diffusivity in OLA generated vesicles.
Giant Unilamellar Vesicles (GUVs) are a versatile tool in many branches of science, including biophysics and synthetic biology. Octanol-Assisted Liposome Assembly (OLA), a recently developed microfluidic technique enables the production and testing of GUVs within a single device under highly controlled experimental conditions. It is therefore gaining significant interest as a platform for use in drug discovery, the production of artificial cells and more generally for controlled studies of the properties of lipid membranes. In this work, we expand the capabilities of the OLA technique by forming GUVs of tunable binary lipid mixtures of DOPC, DOPG and DOPE. Using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching we investigated the lateral diffusion coefficients of lipids in OLA liposomes and found the expected values in the range of 1Â ÎĽm2/s for the lipid systems tested. We studied the OLA derived GUVs under a range of conditions and compared the results with electroformed vesicles. Overall, we found the lateral diffusion coefficients of lipids in vesicles obtained with OLA to be quantitatively similar to those in vesicles obtained via traditional electroformation. Our results provide a quantitative biophysical validation of the quality of OLA derived GUVs, which will facilitate the wider use of this versatile platform.Friedrich Naumann Foundation; Jane Bourque-Driscoll Fund; Cambridge Philosophical Society; Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability; Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council; Wellcome Trust; ER
Phonon-assisted transitions from quantum dot excitons to cavity photons
For a single semiconductor quantum dot embedded in a microcavity, we
theoretically and experimentally investigate phonon-assisted transitions
between excitons and the cavity mode. Within the framework of the independent
boson model we find that such transitions can be very efficient, even for
relatively large exciton-cavity detunings of several millielectron volts.
Furthermore, we predict a strong detuning asymmetry for the exciton lifetime
that vanishes for elevated lattice temperature. Our findings are corroborated
by experiment, which turns out to be in good quantitative and qualitative
agreement with theory
Human Skin Permeation Enhancement Using PLGA Nanoparticles Is Mediated by Local pH Changes
The steady improvement and optimization of transdermal permeation is a constant and
challenging pharmaceutical task. In this study the influence of poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA)
nanoparticles on the dermal permeation of the anti-inflammatory drug flufenamic acid (FFA) was
investigated. For this aim, different vehicles under non-buffered and buffered conditions and different
skin models (human heat separated epidermis and reconstructed human epidermis equivalents)
were tested. Permeation experiments were performed using static Franz diffusion cells under infinite
dosing conditions. Already the presence of drug-free nanoparticles increased drug permeation
across the skin. Drug permeation was even enhanced when applying drug-loaded nanoparticles. In
contrast, buffered vehicles with different pH values (pH 5.4–7.4) revealed the influence of the pH
on the permeation of FFA. The change of the surrounding pH of the biodegradable nanoparticulate
system was demonstrated and visualized using pH-sensitive fluorescent probes. While a potential
contribution of hair follicles could be ruled out, our data suggest that the enhanced permeation of
FFA through human skin in the presence of PLGA nanoparticles is mediated by a locally decreased
pH during hydrolytic degradation of this polymer. This hypothesis is supported by the observation
that skin permeation of the weak base caffeine was not affected
Quantum Dot Potentials: Symanzik Scaling, Resurgent Expansions and Quantum Dynamics
This article is concerned with a special class of the ``double-well-like''
potentials that occur naturally in the analysis of finite quantum systems.
Special attention is paid, in particular, to the so-called Fokker-Planck
potential, which has a particular property: the perturbation series for the
ground-state energy vanishes to all orders in the coupling parameter, but the
actual ground-state energy is positive and dominated by instanton
configurations of the form exp(-a/g), where a is the instanton action. The
instanton effects are most naturally taken into account within the modified
Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization conditions whose expansion leads to the
generalized perturbative expansions (so-called resurgent expansions) for the
energy values of the Fokker-Planck potential. Until now, these resurgent
expansions have been mainly applied for small values of coupling parameter g,
while much less attention has been paid to the strong-coupling regime. In this
contribution, we compare the energy values, obtained by directly resumming
generalized Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization conditions, to the strong-coupling
expansion, for which we determine the first few expansion coefficients in
powers of g^(-2/3). Detailed calculations are performed for a wide range of
coupling parameters g and indicate a considerable overlap between the regions
of validity of the weak-coupling resurgent series and of the strong-coupling
expansion. Apart from the analysis of the energy spectrum of the Fokker-Planck
Hamiltonian, we also briefly discuss the computation of its eigenfunctions.
These eigenfunctions may be utilized for the numerical integration of the
(single-particle) time-dependent Schroedinger equation and, hence, for studying
the dynamical evolution of the wavepackets in the double-well-like potentials.Comment: 13 pages; RevTe
Multiphoton microscopy for the investigation of dermal penetration of nanoparticle-borne drugs
Multiphoton microscopy of a dually fluorescence-labeled model system in excised human skin is employed for high resolution three dimensional visualization in order to study the release, accumulation and penetration properties of drugs released from nanoscale carrier particles in dermal administration. Polymer particles were covalently labeled with fluorescein while Texas Red as a drug-model was dissolved in the particle to be released to the formulation matrix. Single nanoparticles on skin could easily be localized and imaged with diffraction limited resolution. The temporal evolution of the fluorescent drug-model concentration in various skin compartments over more than five hours was investigated by multiphoton spectral imaging of the same area of the specimen. The three dimensional penetration profile of the drug-model in correlation with skin morphology and particle localization information are obtained by a multiple laser line excitation experiment. Multiphoton microscopy combined with spectral imaging was found to allow non invasive long term studies of particle-borne drug-model penetration into the skin with sub cellular resolution. By dual color labeling a clear discrimination between particle-bound and released drug-model was possible. The introduced technique was shown to be a powerful tool in revealing the dermal penetration properties and pathways of drugs and nanoscale drug vehicles on microscopic level
Allele-specific endogenous tagging and quantitative analysis of β-catenin in colorectal cancer cells
Wnt signaling plays important roles in development, homeostasis, and tumorigenesis. Mutations in β-catenin that activate Wnt signaling have been found in colorectal and hepatocellular carcinomas. However, the dynamics of wild-type and mutant forms of β-catenin are not fully understood. Here, we genome-engineered fluorescently tagged alleles of endogenous β-catenin in a colorectal cancer cell line. Wild-type and oncogenic mutant alleles were tagged with different fluorescent proteins, enabling the analysis of both variants in the same cell. We analyzed the properties of both β-catenin alleles using immunoprecipitation, immunofluorescence, and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy approaches, revealing distinctly different biophysical properties. In addition, activation of Wnt signaling by treatment with a GSK3β inhibitor or a truncating APC mutation modulated the wild-type allele to mimic the properties of the mutant β-catenin allele. The one-step tagging strategy demonstrates how genome engineering can be employed for the parallel functional analysis of different genetic variants
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