Knots, Braids and Hedgehogs from the Eikonal Equation

The complex eikonal equation in the three space dimensions is considered. We show that apart from the recently found torus knots this equation can also generate other topological configurations with a non-trivial value of the $\pi_2(S^2)$ index: braided open strings as well as hedgehogs. In particular, cylindric strings i.e. string solutions located on a cylinder with a constant radius are found. Moreover, solutions describing strings lying on an arbitrary surface topologically equivalent to cylinder are presented. We discus them in the context of the eikonal knots. The physical importance of the results originates in the fact that the eikonal knots have been recently used to approximate the Faddeev-Niemi hopfions.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Foraging Behavior of Tetramorium Caespitum in an Urban Environment: the Effect of Food Quality on Foraging

Animals\u27 foraging strategies are directly related to their fitness. Proposed models of optimal foraging assume that animals strategize in terms of maximizing benefits over the cost of acquiring resources. Ants are social insects that are comparable in biomass to humans inhabiting the plant. As such, it is crucial to understand the foraging strategies of such an influential member of the ecosystem. With the ever-increasing rate of urbanization and human encroachment, it is even more important to consider the foraging patterns of species inhabiting urban areas. In this study we investigate optimal foraging strategies in the pavement ant, Tetramorium caespitum. Specifically, our study examined if pavement ant colonies would alter their foraging behavior so as to maximize benefits and minimize costs. To do this, we exposed the ants to food of two varying nutritional qualities to test how they allocated foragers across these two resources.Food quantity, distance to the food source and terrain were the same in both types of resources. Across a two day period, we saw that T. caespitum colonies increased ant recruitment when food quality increased and decreased ant recruitment when food quality decreased. Our control treatments where food quality did not change also did not see a change in ant recruitment. This study shows that species that live in urban areas, such as T. caespitum, can adapt to forage optimally. Studies like this can be used to make predictions about survival of species that are newly associated with urban environments

Diamagnetic repulsion of particles for multilaminar flow assays

© The Royal Society of Chemistry. We demonstrate diamagnetic repulsion forces for performing continuous multilaminar flow assays on particles based on their intrinsic properties and with a simple setup. The platform could be applied to sandwich assays on polystyrene particles, and to cell-based assays via their suspension in biologically benign magnetic media

Baryon Number Violating Scalar Diquarks at the LHC

Baryon number violating (BNV) processes are heavily constrained by experiments searching for nucleon decay and neutron-antineutron oscillations. If the baryon number violation occurs via the third generation quarks, however, we may be able to avoid the nucleon stability constraints, thus making such BNV interactions accessible at the LHC. In this paper we study a specific class of BNV extensions of the standard model (SM) involving diquark and leptoquark scalars. After an introduction to these models we study one promising extension in detail, being interested in particles with mass of O(TeV). We calculate limits on the masses and couplings from neutron-antineutron oscillations and dineutron decay for couplings to first and third generation quarks. We explore the possible consequences of such a model on the matter-antimatter asymmetry. We shall see that for models which break the global baryon minus lepton number symmetry, (B-L), the most stringent constraints come from the need to preserve a matter-antimatter asymmetry. That is, the BNV interaction cannot be introduced if it would remove the matter-antimatter asymmetry independent of baryogenesis mechanism and temperature. Finally, we examine the phenomenology of such models at colliders such as the LHC.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. v2: references added, some typos corrected. v3: some small corrections to match published version, no change in conclusion

On-chip determination of C-reactive protein using magnetic particles in continuous flow

We demonstrate the application of a multilaminar flow platform, in which functionalized magnetic particles are deflected through alternating laminar flow streams of reagents and washing solutions via an external magnet, for the rapid detection of the inflammatory biomarker, C-reactive protein (CRP). The two-step sandwich immunoassay was accomplished in less than 60 s, a vast improvement on the 80−300 min time frame required for enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and the 50 min necessary for off-chip magnetic particle-based assays. The combination of continuous flow and a stationary magnet enables a degree of autonomy in the system, while a detection limit of 0.87 μg mL−1 makes it suitable for the determination of CRP concentrations in clinical diagnostics. Its applicability was further proven by assaying real human serum samples and comparing those results to values obtained using standard ELISA tests

Kinetic energy change with doping upon superfluid condensation in high temperature superconductors

In conventional BCS superconductors, the electronic kinetic energy increases upon superfluid condensation (the change DEkin is positive). Here we show that in the high critical temperature superconductor Bi-2212, DEkin crosses over from a fully compatible conventional BCS behavior (DEkin>0) to an unconventional behavior (DEkin<0) as the free carrier density decreases. If a single mechanism is responsible for superconductivity across the whole phase diagram of high critical temperature superconductors, this mechanism should allow for a smooth transition between such two regimes around optimal doping.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure

Artificial leaf device for hydrogen generation from immobilised C. reinhardtii microalgae

We developed a fully biomimetic leaf-like device for hydrogen production which allows incorporated fabric-immobilised microalgae culture to be simultaneously hydrated with media and harvested from the produced hydrogen in a continuous flow regime without the need to replace the algal culture. Our leaf device produces hydrogen by direct photolysis of water resulting from redirecting the photosynthetic pathways in immobilised microalgae due to the lack of oxygen. In contrast to the many other reports in the literature on batch photobioreactors producing hydrogen from suspension culture of microalgae, we present the first report where this is done in a continuous manner from a fabric-immobilised microalgae culture. The reported artificial leaf device maximises the sunlight energy utilisation per gram of algae and can be upscaled cheaply and easily to cover large areas. We compared the production of hydrogen from both immobilised and suspended cultures of C. reinhardtii microalgae under sulphur, phosphorus and oxygen deprived conditions. The viability and potential of this approach is clearly demonstrated. Even though this is a first prototype, the hydrogen yield of our artificial leaf device is twenty times higher per gram of algae than in previously the reported batch reactors. Such leaf-like devices could potentially be made from flexible plastic sheets and installed on roofs and other sun-exposed surfaces that are inaccessible by photovoltaic cells. The ability to continuously produce inexpensive hydrogen by positioning inexpensive sheets onto any surface could have an enormous importance in the field of biofuels. The proposed new concept can provide a cleaner and very inexpensive way of bio-hydrogen generation by flexible sheet-like devices

High fidelity imaging and high performance computing in nonlinear EIT

We show that nonlinear EIT provides images with well defined characteristics when smoothness of the image is used as a constraint in the reconstruction process. We use the gradient of the logarithm of resistivity as an effective measure of image smoothness, which has the advantage that resistivity and conductivity are treated with equal weight. We suggest that a measure of the fidelity of the image to the object requires the explicit definition and application of such a constraint. The algorithm is applied to the simulation of intra-ventricular haemorrhaging (IVH) in a simple head model. The results indicate that a 5% increase in the blood content of the ventricles would be easily detectable with the noise performance of contemporary instrumentation. The possible implementation of the algorithm in real time via high performance computing is discussed