Mesons and Flavor on the Conifold

We explore the addition of fundamental matter to the Klebanov-Witten field theory. We add probe D7-branes to the ${\cal N}=1$ theory obtained from placing D3-branes at the tip of the conifold and compute the meson spectrum for the scalar mesons. In the UV limit of massless quarks we find the exact dimensions of the associated operators, which exhibit a simple scaling in the large-charge limit. For the case of massive quarks we compute the spectrum of scalar mesons numerically.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, v2: typos fixe

Monte Carlo simulation of melting transition on DNA nanocompartment

DNA nanocompartment is a typical DNA-based machine whose function is dependent of molecular collective effect. Fundamental properties of the device have been addressed via electrochemical analysis, fluorescent microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Interesting and novel phenomena emerged during the switching of the device. We have found that DNAs in this system exhibit a much steep melting transition compared to ones in bulk solution or conventional DNA array. To achieve an understanding to this discrepancy, we introduced DNA-DNA interaction potential to the conventional Ising-like Zimm-Bragg theory and Peyrard-Bishop model of DNA melting. To avoid unrealistic numerical calculation caused by modification of the Peyrard-Bishop nonlinear Hamiltonian with the DNA-DNA interaction, we established coarse-gained Monte Carlo recursion relations by elucidation of five components of energy change during melting transition. The result suggests that DNA-DNA interaction potential accounts for the observed steep transition.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Elastic Convection in Vibrated Viscoplastic Fluids

We observe a new type of behavior in a shear thinning yield stress fluid: freestanding convection rolls driven by vertical oscillation. The convection occurs without the constraint of container boundaries yet the diameter of the rolls is spontaneously selected for a wide range of parameters. The transition to the convecting state occurs without hysteresis when the amplitude of the plate acceleration exceeds a critical value. We find that a non-dimensional stress, the stress due to the inertia of the fluid normalized by the yield stress, governs the onset of the convective motion.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Design of a low-noise aeroacoustic wind tunnel facility at Brunel University

This paper represents the design principle of a quiet, low turbulence and moderately high speed aeroacoustic wind tunnel which was recently commissioned at Brunel University. A new hemi-anechoic chamber was purposely built to facilitate aeroacoustic measurements. The wind tunnel can achieve a maximum speed of about 80 ms-1. The turbulence intensity of the free jet in the potential core is between 0.1–0.2%. The noise characteristic of the aeroacoustic wind tunnel was validated by three case studies. All of which can demonstrate a very low background noise produced by the bare jet in comparison to the noise radiated from the cylinder rod/flat plate/airfoil in the air stream.The constructions of the aeroacoustic wind tunnel and the hemi-anechoic chamber are financially supported by the School of Engineering and Design at Brunel University

Spin dynamics and level structure of quantum-dot quantum wells

We have characterized CdS/CdSe/CdS quantum-dot quantum wells using time-resolved Faraday rotation (TRFR). The spin dynamics show that the electron g-factor varies as a function of quantum well width and the transverse spin lifetime of several nano-seconds is robust up to room temperature. As a function of probe energy, the amplitude of the TRFR signal shows pronounced resonances, which allow one to identify individual exciton transitions. While the TRFR data are inconsistent with the conduction and valence band level scheme of spherical quantum-dot quantum wells, a model in which broken spherical symmetry is taken into account captures the essential features.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

N=1 gauge superpotentials from supergravity

We review the supergravity derivation of some non-perturbatively generated effective superpotentials for N=1 gauge theories. Specifically, we derive the Veneziano-Yankielowicz superpotential for pure N=1 Super Yang-Mills theory from the warped deformed conifold solution, and the Affleck-Dine-Seiberg superpotential for N=1 SQCD from a solution describing fractional D3-branes on a C^3 / Z_2 x Z_2 orbifold.Comment: LaTeX, iopart class, 8 pages, 3 figures. Contribution to the proceedings of the workshop of the RTN Network "The quantum structure of space-time and the geometric nature of fundamental interactions", Copenhagen, September 2003; v2: published version with minor clarification

On the Convergence of Fuzzy Sets and the Completeness of the Space of Fuzzy Sets

AbstractIn this article, we first introduce several convergence concepts of fuzzy sets. Then we construct an embedding of the space of fuzzy sets in a normed linear space. We prove that the space of fuzzy sets is a complete metric space under the embedding. This framework enables us to study the calculus of fuzzy functions

Evolutionary Signatures of Common Human Cis-Regulatory Haplotypes

Variation in gene expression may give rise to a significant fraction of inter-individual phenotypic variation. Studies searching for the underlying genetic controls for such variation have been conducted in model organisms and humans in recent years. In our previous effort of assessing conserved underlying haplotype patterns across ethnic populations, we constructed common haplotypes using SNPs having conserved linkage disequilibrium (LD) across ethnic populations. These common haplotypes cluster into a simple evolutionary structure based on their frequencies, defining only up to three conserved clusters termed ‘haplotype frameworks’. One intriguing preliminary finding was that a significant portion of reported variants strongly associated with cis-regulation tags these globally conserved haplotype frameworks. Here we expand the investigation by collecting genes showing stringently determined cis-association between genotypes and expression phenotypes from major studies. We conducted phylogenetic analysis of current major haplotypes along with the corresponding haplotypes derived from chimpanzee reference sequences. Our analysis reveals that, for the vast majority of such cis-regulatory genes, the tagging SNPs showing the strongest association also tag the haplotype lineages directly separated from ancestry, inferred from either chimpanzee reference sequences or the allele frequency-derived haplotype frameworks, suggesting that the differentially expressed phenotypes were evolved relatively early in human history. Such evolutionary signatures provide keys for a more effective identification of globally-conserved candidate regulatory haplotypes across human genes in future epidemiologic and pharmacogenetic studies