Mass transfer properties of Acacia mangium plantation wood

This study investigated the mass transfer properties (permeability and mass diffusivity) in the longitudinal, radial and tangential directions of plantation-grown Acacia mangium in VinhPhuc province,northeast, Vietnam. These properties will be used to complement a conventional drying model in the future. Measurements of gas and liquid permeability were performed using a Porometer (POROLUXTM1000). Mass diffusivity was determined in a constant humidity and temperature chamber using PVC-CHA vaporimeters. Results showed the gas permeability was significant higher than liquid with the descending order of longitudinal, radial, and tangential directions. The permeability anisotropy ratios from the longitudinal to transverse directions of Acacia mangium were much lower than other published species. However, the obvious anisotropy ratios from radial to tangential for both permeability and diffusivity, is one of concerns as they can exacerbate defects during drying. Besides, the high permeability and diffusivity of Acaciamangium compared to some other species reported compounds its relatively fast drying rate

Vanishing Twist near Focus-Focus Points

We show that near a focus-focus point in a Liouville integrable Hamiltonian system with two degrees of freedom lines of locally constant rotation number in the image of the energy-momentum map are spirals determined by the eigenvalue of the equilibrium. From this representation of the rotation number we derive that the twist condition for the isoenergetic KAM condition vanishes on a curve in the image of the energy-momentum map that is transversal to the line of constant energy. In contrast to this we also show that the frequency map is non-degenerate for every point in a neighborhood of a focus-focus point.Comment: 13 page

Cathelicidin suppresses lipid accumulation and hepatic steatosis by inhibition of the CD36 receptor.

Background and objectivesObesity is a global epidemic which increases the risk of the metabolic syndrome. Cathelicidin (LL-37 and mCRAMP) is an antimicrobial peptide with an unknown role in obesity. We hypothesize that cathelicidin expression correlates with obesity and modulates fat mass and hepatic steatosis.Materials and methodsMale C57BL/6 J mice were fed a high-fat diet. Streptozotocin was injected into mice to induce diabetes. Experimental groups were injected with cathelicidin and CD36 overexpressing lentiviruses. Human mesenteric fat adipocytes, mouse 3T3-L1 differentiated adipocytes and human HepG2 hepatocytes were used in the in vitro experiments. Cathelicidin levels in non-diabetic, prediabetic and type II diabetic patients were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.ResultsLentiviral cathelicidin overexpression reduced hepatic steatosis and decreased the fat mass of high-fat diet-treated diabetic mice. Cathelicidin overexpression reduced mesenteric fat and hepatic fatty acid translocase (CD36) expression that was reversed by lentiviral CD36 overexpression. Exposure of adipocytes and hepatocytes to cathelicidin significantly inhibited CD36 expression and reduced lipid accumulation. Serum cathelicidin protein levels were significantly increased in non-diabetic and prediabetic patients with obesity, compared with non-diabetic patients with normal body mass index (BMI) values. Prediabetic patients had lower serum cathelicidin protein levels than non-diabetic subjects.ConclusionsCathelicidin inhibits the CD36 fat receptor and lipid accumulation in adipocytes and hepatocytes, leading to a reduction of fat mass and hepatic steatosis in vivo. Circulating cathelicidin levels are associated with increased BMI. Our results demonstrate that cathelicidin modulates the development of obesity

Magnetic fields in M dwarfs: rapid magnetic field variability in EV Lac

We report here our spectropolarimetric observations obtained using the Espadons/CFHT high resolution spectrograph of two M dwarf stars which standard models suggest are fully convective: EV Lac (M3.5) and HH And (M5.5). The difference in their rotational velocity makes them good targets to study the dependence of the magnetic field topology in M dwarfs on rotation. Our results reveal some aspects of the field topology in EV Lac and HH And. We measured mean longitudinal magnetic field strengths (Bz) in EV Lac ranging from 18+-3 G to -40+-3 G. The Bz variations are seen to occur in a timescale of less than 50 minutes, significantly shorter than the rotation period, and are not due to a flaring event. We discuss some formation scenarios of the Zeeman signatures found in EV Lac. For HH And we could not detect circular polarization and thus we place an upper limit to Bz of 5 G.Comment: Accepted by ApJ Letter

L^{2}-restriction bounds for eigenfunctions along curves in the quantum completely integrable case

We show that for a quantum completely integrable system in two dimensions,the $L^{2}$-normalized joint eigenfunctions of the commuting semiclassical pseudodifferential operators satisfy restriction bounds ofthe form $\int_{\gamma} |\phi_{j}^{\hbar}|^2 ds = {\mathcal O}(|\log \hbar|)$ for generic curves $\gamma$ on the surface. We also prove that the maximal restriction bounds of Burq-Gerard-Tzvetkov are always attained for certain exceptional subsequences of eigenfunctions.Comment: Correct some typos and added some more detail in section