Control of scroll wave turbulence using resonant perturbations

Turbulence of scroll waves is a sort of spatio-temporal chaos that exists in three-dimensional excitable media. Cardiac tissue and the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction are examples of such media. In cardiac tissue, chaotic behaviour is believed to underlie fibrillation which, without intervention, precedes cardiac death. In this study we investigate suppression of the turbulence using stimulation of two different types, "modulation of excitability" and "extra transmembrane current". With cardiac defibrillation in mind, we used a single pulse as well as repetitive extra current with both constant and feedback controlled frequency. We show that turbulence can be terminated using either a resonant modulation of excitability or a resonant extra current. The turbulence is terminated with much higher probability using a resonant frequency perturbation than a non-resonant one. Suppression of the turbulence using a resonant frequency is up to fifty times faster than using a non-resonant frequency, in both the modulation of excitability and the extra current modes. We also demonstrate that resonant perturbation requires strength one order of magnitude lower than that of a single pulse, which is currently used in clinical practice to terminate cardiac fibrillation. Our results provide a robust method of controlling complex chaotic spatio-temporal processes. Resonant drift of spiral waves has been studied extensively in two dimensions, however, these results show for the first time that it also works in three dimensions, despite the complex nature of the scroll wave turbulence.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Phys Rev E 2008/06/13. Last version: 2008/09/18, after revie

Frequency response in surface-potential driven electro-hydrodynamics

Using a Fourier approach we offer a general solution to calculations of slip velocity within the circuit description of the electro-hydrodynamics in a binary electrolyte confined by a plane surface with a modulated surface potential. We consider the case with a spatially constant intrinsic surface capacitance where the net flow rate is in general zero while harmonic rolls as well as time-averaged vortex-like components may exist depending on the spatial symmetry and extension of the surface potential. In general the system displays a resonance behavior at a frequency corresponding to the inverse RC time of the system. Different surface potentials share the common feature that the resonance frequency is inversely proportional to the characteristic length scale of the surface potential. For the asymptotic frequency dependence above resonance we find a 1/omega^2 power law for surface potentials with either an even or an odd symmetry. Below resonance we also find a power law omega^alpha with alpha being positive and dependent of the properties of the surface potential. Comparing a tanh potential and a sech potential we qualitatively find the same slip velocity, but for the below-resonance frequency response the two potentials display different power law asymptotics with alpha=1 and alpha~2, respectively.Comment: 4 pages including 1 figure. Accepted for PR

Transport properties of annealed CdSe nanocrystal solids

Transport properties of artificial solids composed of colloidal CdSe nanocrystals (NCs) are studied from 6 K to 250 K, before and after annealing. Annealing results in greatly enhanced dark and photocurrent in NC solids, while transmission electron microscopy (TEM) micrographs show that the inter-dot separation decreases. The increased current can be attributed to the enhancement of inter-dot tunneling caused by the decreased separation between NCs and by chemical changes in their organic cap. In addition, the absorption spectra of annealed solids are slightly red-shifted and broadened. These red-shifts may result from the change of the dielectric environment around the NCs. Our measurements also indicate that Coulomb interactions between charges on neighboring NCs play an important role in the tunneling current.Comment: 24 pages,4 figures, 1 tabl

A Gapless Theory of Bose-Einstein Condensation in Dilute Gases at Finite Temperature

In this paper we develop a gapless theory of BEC which can be applied to both trapped and homogeneous gases at zero and finite temperature. The many-body Hamiltonian for the system is written in a form which is approximately quadratic with higher order cubic and quartic terms. The quadratic part is diagonalized exactly by transforming to a quasiparticle basis, while the non-quadratic terms are dealt with using first and second order perturbation theory. The conventional treatment of these terms, based on factorization approximations, is shown to be inconsistent. Infra-red divergences can appear in individual terms of the perturbation expansion, but we show analytically that the total contribution beyond quadratic order is finite. The resulting excitation spectrum is gapless and the energy shifts are small for a dilute gas away from the critical region, justifying the use of perturbation theory. Ultra-violet divergences can appear if a contact potential is used to describe particle interactions. We show that the use of this potential as an approximation to the two-body T-matrix leads naturally to a high-energy renormalization. The theory developed in this paper is therefore well-defined at both low and high energy and provides a systematic description of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases. It can therefore be used to calculate the energies and decay rates of the excitations of the system at temperatures approaching the phase transition.Comment: 39 pages of Revtex. 1 figur

Low energy defibrillation in human cardiac tissue: a simulation study.

Copyright © 2009 Biophysical SocietyJournal ArticleWe aim to assess the effectiveness of feedback-controlled resonant drift pacing as a method for low energy defibrillation. Antitachycardia pacing is the only low energy defibrillation approach to have gained clinical significance, but it is still suboptimal. Low energy defibrillation would avoid adverse side effects associated with high voltage shocks and allow the application of implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) therapy, in cases where such therapy is not tolerated today. We present results of computer simulations of a bidomain model of cardiac tissue with human atrial ionic kinetics. Reentry was initiated and low energy shocks were applied with the same period as the reentry, using feedback to maintain resonance. We demonstrate that such stimulation can move the core of reentrant patterns, in the direction that depends on the location of the electrodes and the time delay in the feedback. Termination of reentry is achieved with shock strength one-order-of-magnitude weaker than in conventional single-shock defibrillation. We conclude that resonant drift pacing can terminate reentry at a fraction of the shock strength currently used for defibrillation and can potentially work where antitachycardia pacing fails, due to the feedback mechanisms. Success depends on a number of details that these numerical simulations have uncovered

The genetic basis of energy conservation in the sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio alaskensis G20.

Sulfate-reducing bacteria play major roles in the global carbon and sulfur cycles, but it remains unclear how reducing sulfate yields energy. To determine the genetic basis of energy conservation, we measured the fitness of thousands of pooled mutants of Desulfovibrio alaskensis G20 during growth in 12 different combinations of electron donors and acceptors. We show that ion pumping by the ferredoxin:NADH oxidoreductase Rnf is required whenever substrate-level phosphorylation is not possible. The uncharacterized complex Hdr/flox-1 (Dde_1207:13) is sometimes important alongside Rnf and may perform an electron bifurcation to generate more reduced ferredoxin from NADH to allow further ion pumping. Similarly, during the oxidation of malate or fumarate, the electron-bifurcating transhydrogenase NfnAB-2 (Dde_1250:1) is important and may generate reduced ferredoxin to allow additional ion pumping by Rnf. During formate oxidation, the periplasmic [NiFeSe] hydrogenase HysAB is required, which suggests that hydrogen forms in the periplasm, diffuses to the cytoplasm, and is used to reduce ferredoxin, thus providing a substrate for Rnf. During hydrogen utilization, the transmembrane electron transport complex Tmc is important and may move electrons from the periplasm into the cytoplasmic sulfite reduction pathway. Finally, mutants of many other putative electron carriers have no clear phenotype, which suggests that they are not important under our growth conditions, although we cannot rule out genetic redundancy

Jastrow correlation factor for atoms, molecules, and solids

A form of Jastrow factor is introduced for use in quantum Monte Carlo simulations of finite and periodic systems. Test data are presented for atoms, molecules, and solids, including both all-electron and pseudopotential atoms. We demonstrate that our Jastrow factor is able to retrieve a large fraction of the correlation energy

Damping in 2D and 3D dilute Bose gases

Damping in 2D and 3D dilute gases is investigated using both the hydrodynamical approach and the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov (HFB) approximation . We found that the both methods are good for the Beliaev damping at zero temperature and Landau damping at very low temperature, however, at high temperature, the hydrodynamical approach overestimates the Landau damping and the HFB gives a better approximation. This result shows that the comparison of the theoretical calculation using the hydrodynamical approach and the experimental data for high temperature done by Vincent Liu (PRL {\bf21} 4056 (1997)) is not proper. For two-dimensional systems, we show that the Beliaev damping rate is proportional to $k^3$ and the Landau damping rate is proportional to $T^2$ for low temperature and to $T$ for high temperature. We also show that in two dimensions the hydrodynamical approach gives the same result for zero temperature and for low temperature as HFB, but overestimates the Landau damping for high temperature.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

<i>‘What retention’ means to me</i>: the position of the adult learner in student retention

Studies of student retention and progression overwhelmingly appear adopt definitions that place the institution, rather than the student, at the centre. Retention is most often conceived in terms of linear and continuous progress between institutionally identified start and end points. This paper reports on research that considered data from 38 in-depth interviews conducted with individuals who had characteristics often associated with non-traditional engagement in higher education who between 2006 and 2010 had studied an ‘Introduction to HE’ module at one distance higher education institution, some of whom had progressed to further study at that institution, some of whom had not. The research deployed a life histories approach to seek a finer grained understanding of how individuals conceptualise their own learning journey and experience, in order to reflect on institutional conceptions of student retention. The findings highlight potential anomalies hidden within institutional retention rates – large proportions of the interview participants who were not ‘retained’ by the institution reported successful progression to and in other learning institutions and environments, both formal and informal. Nearly all described positive perspectives on lifelong learning which were either engendered or improved by the learning undertaken. This attests to the complexity of individuals’ lives and provides clear evidence that institution-centric definitions of retention and progression are insufficient to create truly meaningful understanding of successful individual learning journeys and experiences. It is argued that only through careful consideration of the lived experience of students and a re-conception of measures of retention, will we be able to offer real insight into improving student retention

Search for the scalar a0a_0 and f0f_0 mesons in the reactions e+e−→γπ0π0(η)e^+e^-\to\gamma\pi^0\pi^0(\eta)

It is shown that the reactions $e^+e^-\to\gamma\pi^0\pi^0(\eta)$ give a good chance for observing scalar $a_0$ and $f_0$ mesons. In the photon energy region less then 100 MeV the vector meson contributions $e^+e^-\to V^0\to\pi^0 V'^0\to\gamma\pi^0\pi^0(\eta)$ are negligible in comparison with the scalar mesons $e^+e^-\to\phi\to\gamma f_0(a_0)\to\gamma\pi^0\pi^0(\eta)$ for $BR(\phi\to\gamma f_0(a_0)\to\gamma\pi^0\pi^0(\eta))$ greater than $5\cdot10^{-6}(10^{-5})$. Using two-channel treatment of the $\pi\pi$ scattering the predictions for $BR(\phi\to\gamma (f_0+\sigma)\to\gamma\pi\pi)$ are derived. The four quark model, the model of $K\bar K$ molecule and the$s\bar s$ model of scalar $f_0$ and $a_0$ mesons are discussed.Comment: 31 pages, 10 ps files of figures, minor numerical changes, Appendix corrected, to be published in Phys.Rev.