54 research outputs found
Self-Diffusion of a Polymer Chain in a Melt
Self-diffusion of a polymer chain in a melt is studied by Monte Carlo
simulations of the bond fluctuation model, where only the excluded volume
interaction is taken into account. Polymer chains, each of which consists of
segments, are located on an simple cubic lattice
under periodic boundary conditions, where each segment occupies unit cells. The results for
and 512 at the volume fraction are reported, where
for and L=192 for . The -dependence of the
self-diffusion constant is examined. Here, is estimated from the mean
square displacements of the center of mass of a single polymer chain at the
times larger than the longest relaxation time. From the data for , 384
and 512, the apparent exponent , which describes the apparent power
law dependence of on as , is estimated as
. The ratio seems to be a
constant for and 512, where and
denote the longest relaxation time and the mean square end-to-end distance,
respectively.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp
Screening by symmetry of long-range hydrodynamic interactions of polymers confined in sheets
Hydrodynamic forces may significantly affect the motion of polymers. In
sheet-like cavities, such as the cell's cytoplasm and microfluidic channels,
the hydrodynamic forces are long-range. It is therefore expected that that
hydrodynamic interactions will dominate the motion of polymers in sheets and
will be manifested by Zimm-like scaling. Quite the opposite, we note here that
although the hydrodynamic forces are long-range their overall effect on the
motion of polymers vanishes due to the symmetry of the two-dimensional flow. As
a result, the predicted scaling of experimental observables such as the
diffusion coefficient or the rotational diffusion time is Rouse-like, in accord
with recent experiments. The effective screening validates the use of the
non-interacting blobs picture for polymers confined in a sheet.Comment: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/complex/tlusty/papers/Macromolecules2006.pdf
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ma060251
Polymer depletion interaction between two parallel repulsive walls
The depletion interaction between two parallel repulsive walls confining a
dilute solution of long and flexible polymer chains is studied by
field-theoretic methods. Special attention is paid to self-avoidance between
chain monomers relevant for polymers in a good solvent. Our direct approach
avoids the mapping of the actual polymer chains on effective hard or soft
spheres. We compare our results with recent Monte Carlo simulations [A. Milchev
and K. Binder, Eur. Phys. J. B 3, 477 (1998)] and with experimental results for
the depletion interaction between a spherical colloidal particle and a planar
wall in a dilute solution of nonionic polymers [D. Rudhardt, C. Bechinger, and
P. Leiderer, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 1330 (1998)].Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures. Final version as publishe
Adipose Inflammation Initiates Recruitment of Leukocytes to Mouse Femoral Artery: Role of Adipo-Vascular Axis in Chronic Inflammation
Background: Although inflammation within adipose tissues is known to play a role in metabolic syndrome, the causative connection between inflamed adipose tissue and atherosclerosis is not fully understood. In the present study, we examined the direct effects of adipose tissue on macro-vascular inflammation using intravital microscopic analysis of the femoral artery after adipose tissue transplantation. Methods and Results: We obtained subcutaneous (SQ) and visceral (VIS) adipose tissues from C57BL/6 mice fed normal chow (NC) or a high fat diet (HF), then transplanted the tissues into the perivascular area of the femoral artery of recipient C57/BL6 mice. Quantitative intravital microscopic analysis revealed an increase in adherent leukocytes after adipose tissue transplantation, with VIS found to induce significantly more leukocyte accumulation as compared to SQ. Moreover, adipose tissues from HF fed mice showed significantly more adhesion to the femoral artery. Simultaneous flow cytometry demonstrated upregulation of CD11b on peripheral granulocyte and monocytes after adipose tissue transplantation. We also observed dominant expressions of the inflammatory cytokine IL-6, and chemokines MCP-1 and MIP-1b in the stromal vascular fraction (SVF) of these adipose tissues as well as sera of recipient mice after transplantation. Finally, massive accumulations of pro-inflammatory and dendritic cells were detected in mice with VIS transplantation as compared to SQ, as well as in HF mice as compared to those fed NC
Scale-free static and dynamical correlations in melts of monodisperse and Flory-distributed homopolymers: A review of recent bond-fluctuation model studies
It has been assumed until very recently that all long-range correlations are
screened in three-dimensional melts of linear homopolymers on distances beyond
the correlation length characterizing the decay of the density
fluctuations. Summarizing simulation results obtained by means of a variant of
the bond-fluctuation model with finite monomer excluded volume interactions and
topology violating local and global Monte Carlo moves, we show that due to an
interplay of the chain connectivity and the incompressibility constraint, both
static and dynamical correlations arise on distances . These
correlations are scale-free and, surprisingly, do not depend explicitly on the
compressibility of the solution. Both monodisperse and (essentially)
Flory-distributed equilibrium polymers are considered.Comment: 60 pages, 49 figure
Quality of Data Entry Using Single Entry, Double Entry and Automated Forms ProcessingâAn Example Based on a Study of Patient-Reported Outcomes
Background: The clinical and scientific usage of patient-reported outcome measures is increasing in the health services. Often paper forms are used. Manual double entry of data is defined as the definitive gold standard for transferring data to an electronic format, but the process is laborious. Automated forms processing may be an alternative, but further validation is warranted. Methods: 200 patients were randomly selected from a cohort of 5777 patients who had previously answered two different questionnaires. The questionnaires were scanned using an automated forms processing technique, as well as processed by single and double manual data entry, using the EpiData Entry data entry program. The main outcome measure was the proportion of correctly entered numbers at question, form and study level. Results: Manual double-key data entry (error proportion per 1000 fields = 0.046 (95 % CI: 0.001â0.258)) performed better than single-key data entry (error proportion per 1000 fields = 0.370 (95 % CI: 0.160â0.729), (p = 0.020)). There was no statistical difference between Optical Mark Recognition (error proportion per 1000 fields = 0.046 (95 % CI: 0.001â0.258)) and double-key data entry (p = 1.000). With the Intelligent Character Recognition method, there was no statistical difference compared to single-key data entry (error proportion per 1000 fields = 6.734 (95 % CI: 0.817â24.113), (p = 0.656)), as well as double-key data entry (error proportion per 1000 fields = 3.367 (95 % CI: 0.085â18.616)), (p = 0.319))
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